


Open Your Eyes and See

by Jentothepen



Series: Open Your Eyes and See [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU based on a film, Angst, Cas is a doctor, Cas is a ghost (kinda), Coma, Dean is a landscape designer, F/M, Happy Ending, M/M, Presumed Death of a Major Character, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 12:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 42,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5004694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jentothepen/pseuds/Jentothepen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been two years since Dean’s whole life fell apart. Two years during which he has painstakingly tried to piece his life back together. Just as he has finally decided to stop running he meets the mysterious Castiel - in the middle of the living room of his new apartment. Castiel does not remember who he is or what has happened to him. He certainly doesn’t remember why he can walk through walls, and why no one but Dean can see or hear him.<br/>Based on the premise of the film <i>Just like Heaven</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
>   
> 
> 
>   
>  _Artwork by KJ - see the rest of her amazing work_   
>  [here](http://kjneely.tumblr.com/post/131231296774/open-your-eyes-and-see-by-jentothepen-artist)   
>    
> 
> 
> A big, gigantic thank you to my wonderful artist [KJ](http://kjneely.tumblr.com) for the most amazing art work I could have hoped for. You brought this story to life and I couldn't imagine a better artist to be paired with. Thank you for a great first ride!
> 
> Another big thank you to my dear friend Julia because she has never seen an episode of Supernatural and yet agreed to read the first draft (and ended up shipping it anyway). Your encouragement kept me going.
> 
> And last but not least, thank you to [Jess](http://jesh14.tumblr.com/) and [Karlena](http://freckles-n-feathers.tumblr.com/), my personal TFW who helped me with the second and also the third draft (and possibly the fourth, I lost count). I love you!
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](http://jenpen.tumblr.com/)

Castiel looked around the garden trying to take in every detail of his surroundings. There were high reaching trees, colourful flowers and everything in-between. He couldn’t even name half of the plants that were growing here. But all those colours coalescing into something so breathtakingly beautiful simply took his breath away. And as the low afternoon sun warmed his face, the rays still shining strong above the green hills in the distance, he closed his eyes and breathed in the fragrant smells that surrounded him. The tension from his body just draining away more and more with every breath.

“Dr. Novak?”

He felt the faint touch of a hand on his shoulder, and instinctively opened his eyes. The garden was gone; instead his eyes fell on a white styrofoam cup filled with lukewarm black slush and a rather sad-looking sandwich that consisted of stale bread and cooked ham, both of which were currently sitting on the table in front of him in the doctors’ break room. He must have fallen asleep again. To be fair, he was in the middle of a 24-hour shift that was already lasting closer to 30 and it really wasn’t a surprising occurrence anymore to doze off every chance he got.

Castiel sat up slowly, stretching his arms over his head and rolling his shoulders to get rid of the stiffness. His next nap really needed to happen in a real bed if he wanted to avoid back or neck problems in his near future.

“How long was I out?”

“About ten minutes, I think. Just wanted to let you know that Mr. Hudson’s asking for you.”

Castiel sighed, dropping his arms back down onto his lap. His eyes fell back to the pathetic excuse of a sandwich and then he scrunched up his face, feeling nauseated just thinking about eating another bite of it. He pinched the bridge of his nose, took a deep breath, and then got up from the chair grabbing the paper plate with the offending sandwich to throw it into the trash can. 

“Okay, let’s see what he wants this time,” he said as he motioned for Brenda to walk ahead of him.

Time to go back to work.

* * * *

Castiel stepped out of the elevator and into the busy setting that was the Emergency Department at Stanford Medical Health. There was rarely a quiet moment to be had down here with nurses, doctors and patients running around in various states of distress. Despite the lack of sleep Castiel loved working here because there was always someone who needed help and it never got boring. This was especially the case when one of his closest friends from med school, Dr. Balthazar Dupree who was also head of neurology, came by during his breaks to talk to the nurses, or rather one nurse he had taken a special interest in lately.

“Castiel, I just talked to Brenda here and she told me she found you with your face on your sandwich, asleep,” Balthazar remarked with the hint of a smile as Castiel approached him. 

“I wasn’t …”, Castiel began, his tone defensive even though he knew Balthazar was right. There really was no point in denying that he was tired but he hadn’t actually been sleeping on his sandwich. Or had he? His mind was drawing a blank so in the end he just shrugged his shoulders.

“When was the last time you slept in your own bed?” Balthazar asked, more serious this time, a worried expression on his face.

“I don’t know,” Castiel admitted although he knew the answer to that perfectly well - it had been two days ago after an especially gruelling shift and he had slept 12 hours straight afterwards. Then he had come back to work and hadn’t really left since.

“Well, in that case, you should probably go home and sleep. We don’t want you to get cheese all over your pretty face now, do we?”

“Going home is not going to get me the attending position though. You know how tough it is, you’ve been in this situation, Balth. And if I remember correctly, you didn’t go home for weeks on end.”

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean …”

“Novak? I could use a hand here,” another attending yelled from across the room as he was trying to calm down a patient who was flailing with all her limbs, trying to claw at his face and repeatedly kicking him.

“I will see you later, Balthazar.”

Castiel patted him on the shoulder and then walked towards the patient beds, pointedly ignoring his friend when he yelled “go home” as he grabbed a syringe and a sedative for the patient from a nearby cart.

Of course, he was tired. But he also needed to show he was committed to his job so that he would get the single attending position the hospital had to offer this year. If he didn’t get it he was either going to have to stay here as a resident for another year or move to god knows where, and away from his sister, the only family he had left. 

He would simply have to suck it up and stay awake for as long as it was required, even if that meant quick naps on a sandwich in the break room.

* * * *

Castiel spent the next few hours treating patients – stitching up cuts, cleaning wounds and trying to convince people that just because some obscure website had told them it was cancer didn’t mean they actually had cancer. At some point he even got proposed to twice by the same elderly lady with dementia who had broken her wrist in a fall and kept calling him “Charles”. All in all, it was a quiet day.

Pneumonia, UTI, migraine. Rinse and repeat.

* * * *

“So, the school wants the parents to make the costumes for their kids. But like, when am I supposed to do that?”

“Can’t you just go to one of those costume shops and buy something? I’m sure no one is going to notice.”

The break room was usually the quietest area in the hospital and the perfect place for doing paperwork, plus it had a coffee machine that actually made half-decent coffee. And that was why, more often than not, Castiel came here to sign off his patient files, trying to keep his paperwork as meticulous as possible. For that though, it needed to be quiet. But today Brenda and Jordan had decided to spend their lunch break talking animatedly about Brenda’s kid and her upcoming school play. And that was positively not quiet.

“You are so lucky, Castiel.”

It took him a moment to realise that someone had said his name, and when he looked up from his paperwork, Jordan and Brenda were looking at him, an expectant look on both their faces. He hadn’t heard the question so just kept staring at them with a blank expression, the pen still perched over the same spot he had started to sign his name on. 

“Just saying, all you have to worry about is work. Must be nice,” Brenda shrugged her shoulders and turned back to Jordan who nodded in agreement.

Castiel watched them for a bit as they moved on to talk about other things that were happening in the hospital - the new doctor up in paediatrics who was apparently charming everyone’s pants off with his smile and other gossip that Castiel was not interested in. Thankfully, it only took him another ten minutes to finish everything and so he grabbed the stack of files and headed back to the records room, glad he didn't have to listen to more gossip. 

As he walked back to the Emergency Department his mind drifted back to what Brenda had said. Thing was, he didn’t want work to be all he was worried about. Because even though he loved his job, he wanted more than spending endless hours at work. He wanted someone he could share his life with. And while there had been a few potential candidates in his past, most of them had bailed as soon as it became clear to them that they would have to share Castiel with his job. It had always turned into some kind of ultimatum - and in the end, it had always been his job that had won.

His sister Anna had made it her personal mission to find him as many dates as she possibly could, from random guys she had met at the supermarket to a friend of a friend. Castiel knew she meant well because she was his big sister and had looked out for him his entire life but considering she was single herself, although by choice as she kept telling him, it was difficult for him to understand her obsession with trying to get him laid.

As he put away the last patient file into the appropriate tray in the room adjacent to the nurses’ station that was stuffed full with medicine cabinets, supplies and filing cabinets, his phone started to vibrate in his pocket. He leaned against the back wall and smiled as he pressed the phone to his ear,

“Anna, hello.”

“You are still coming over tonight, right?” 

“Yes, I was planning to. Why?”

Castiel watched as a nurse came running in to grab a few suturing sets off the shelf. She did a double take when she turned around and saw Castiel standing there, her hand moving to her chest in response. He mouthed a quick 'sorry' and gave her an apologetic smile. 

“You are like a ghost, Castiel,” she whispered, then winked at him and left the room with the supplies. 

“... and I know you don’t like surprises that much but...”

Castiel turned his attention back to the call and his sister’s rambling about something he hadn’t quite caught. Something about another friend she wanted to introduce him to tonight.

“Anna…”

“He is really nice and you are perfect for each other.”

“You know, I am perfectly capable of meeting people myself.”

“I know that, Castiel. But wouldn’t it be nice for once if they weren’t bleeding while you talk to them?”

“Funny.”

“Oh, I have to go now. See-you-at-seven-bye.”

Castiel sighed as he lowered the phone to lock it and stow it back in his pocket. He wasn’t even angry with his sister for trying to set him up anymore but these things never lasted more than one or two dates anyway. And just because Anna thought he was perfect for her little brother didn’t mean he was interesting or someone Castiel could imagine spending the rest of his life with. He had learned that the hard way when one blind date had taken him home a couple of months ago and then had showed him his collection the creepiest dolls Castiel had ever seen. 

“Novak! We got a trauma case coming in in 5. You up for it?”

Castiel saw his attending Dr. Walsh standing at the counter when he walked back out of the records room. She didn't wait for his answer, instead proceeded to march towards the exit to the parking bay for the ambulances.

“How long have you been here?” the older doctor raised an eyebrow at him when Castiel finally caught up with her, trying his best to stifle a yawn. 

“I am good.”

“Novak. Tell me or I’ll have you empty bed pans for the rest of the week,” she gave him one of her trademark looks that were constantly scaring all of her residents even though the woman was only about half their size.

“31 hours,” he finally admitted, knowing perfectly well that he should not be treating new patients anymore anyway. And he was not going to be working on this trauma case now that he had told her, either. 

Walsh eyed him for a few moments then turned her head back to a group of other residents on the other side of the room and called, “Miller, we got a trauma case. You up for it?”

Castiel let out a defeated sigh, his shoulders dropping down in resignation as Walsh turned back to him, a sympathetic smile on her face.

“Novak, you are an exceptional doctor. You are going to become an attending sooner rather than later. But do yourself and your patients a favour, and go home. Get some sleep. I will see you tomorrow.”

And then Castiel watched as the two doctors walked towards the ambulance that had just arrived outside.

Well, at least he would make it to dinner this time.

* * * *

Half an hour later, after a quick shower, he had changed into black slacks, a white button-up shirt and a blue cardigan that Anna had given him for Christmas last year (and according to her made his eyes stand out), and was now jogging across the parking lot towards his car.

The sky was an ominous dark grey and it had just started to rain when Castiel came up to his beaten down Triumph Acclaim. And as he was once again trying to get the keys to work, it crossed his mind that he really needed to look into getting a new car. The doors didn’t really lock anymore and the seatbelts were basic at best. His sister had mockingly named the car ‘death trap’ a few weeks ago when she had taken it into a garage for a checkup and, while the brakes and everything were working fine, the mechanic had told her it was just a matter of time before the engine would die on them. Castiel had insisted on driving it for a bit longer because he really liked the car and most of the time it worked just fine. But it was on days like this when he wished he had listened to his sister.

As he pulled out of the parking lot, the rain picked up quite a bit, the wipers pushing the water around on the windshield instead of clearing it away, effectively making it worse to the point where the street in front of him looked like a watercolour painting. There wasn’t a lot of traffic so he slowed down a bit, his eyes firmly trained on the blurry street in front of him.

When he was halfway across the first intersection, he suddenly noticed a bright light in his peripheral vision. He turned his head as if on autopilot, tearing his eyes off the street to see what was happening. The heavy rain made it impossible for him to see anything but then there was a loud crash and he felt his head forcefully connect with the window to his left before his whole body was yanked back to the other side.

Castiel wasn’t sure what had happened but when he finally managed to open his eyes the first thing he noticed was that the rain had picked up even more. There was a faint sound of voices outside but the heavy cacophony of the rain, pelting down on the roof of his car, was too loud to make out any words.

The next thing he noticed, as he looked down at his hands, was that they were covered in blood. And then there was a whiff of cold air on the left side of his face and suddenly the voices were back, closer this time, but he still couldn’t make out what they were saying.

He closed his eyes for a few moments, his head dropping back onto the headrest, and tried to remember what had happened. There was a faint pressure on his leg and when he opened his eyes again, his vision was blurry around the edges. He could make out someone sitting in front of him, their face contorted into a horrified expression before something was pushed against his head. Someone was talking but no matter how hard Castiel tried, he couldn’t make sense of the words or if they were even meant for him.

It was getting increasingly difficult to keep his eyes open and someone was yanking at his shoulder. The last thing he noticed were the bright flashing lights that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Then everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean stared at the massive painting of - what was that supposed to be anyway, an elephant or maybe a weirdly shaped head, or maybe it was just a huge blob of paint on a canvas? - either way, it was really ugly. And it was smack in the middle of the studio apartment he was currently standing in, unable to tear his gaze away from the monstrosity some people called art.

Dean had never understood the appeal of abstract art. For him, art was found in nature, in flowers and plants, something tangible and not something you were supposed to stare at for hours and that, for all he knew, could have been painted by a 2-year old, or maybe a monkey.

Said painting was currently hung on a giant south facing wall of a studio apartment that he couldn't afford. Yet here he was, getting dragged around the northern part of Palo Alto by an estate agent who apparently hadn’t listened to him at all when he had told her what he was looking for.

“Would you believe this space?” Francine, or was it Frannie, crooned to herself and waved her arms around, a huge smile on her face.

Dean gave her a tight smile, then turned around and marched back towards the door. They had spent the last three hours looking at five different apartments and he had yet to see a place that he would even consider moving into despite the fact that they were out of his price range. This had been such a waste of time when all he wanted was a nice little place that wasn’t ridiculously overpriced or stuffed full of weird artsy stuff.

Once he got back outside, he shuffled a few feet down the sidewalk, only stopping when Francine/Frannie yelled after him. He sighed, turning so that the sun was shining right into his face and waited for her to catch up with him.

“Mr Winchester. I really don’t know how to help you; you need to be more specific about what you are looking for.”

Her heels clacked on the pavement under her feet as she came up to him, completely out of breath like she had just ran 5 miles in her heels. Dean briefly wondered if she was a smoker or if she just wasn't used to her clients running away from her.

“I don’t know…,” he began when he was suddenly hit in the face by a piece of paper. He peeled it off his face and threw it away without paying any attention to it before he continued, “I just want something simple. And affordable. I don’t think-…”

He was hit in the face again, by the same piece of paper. Only this time he pulled it off his face and actually looked at the big letters on the blue sheet:

SUBLET AVAILABLE  
Fully furnished with hardwood floors and AC. Roof Access.  
1327 University Avenue  
Call 555-2662

Dean read it twice before he realised that the address was just a few doors down on the other side of the street. So he handed Francine/Frannie the flyer and walked off towards the address.

He heard her yelling his name as he crossed the street but he had already laid eyes on the bright blue door of the building and decided to at least see if the ad was current. He found another of those flyers stuck to the letterboxes next to the entrance that looked fairly new. When he heard Francine/Franny walk up to him, he turned around and saw that she was already typing away on her phone before putting it to her ear,

“I am sure they already rented this place out. It is a prime location but I am gonna- oh, yes. Hello. I am calling about the sublet....”

The house didn’t look like much from the outside but when they stepped inside the apartment on the top floor 15 minutes later, Dean immediately took a liking to it. The windows that lined the opposite wall let in the early afternoon sunlight, giving the whole place a warm glow. He could even see part of the bay from here. As he took a quick look around he quickly found the the door leading up to the roof and if he hadn’t already been sold before, he certainly was now. There was a lot of space up there and, despite the fact that no one had done anything with it, the roof was simply breathtaking, giving him an even better view of the bay and the surrounding area. 

When he came back downstairs after a few minutes, the estate agent was waiting for him with the super who had let them in, talking about something that the super obviously didn’t care about as he just looked extremely bored while fiddling with the set of keys he was holding in his hand.

“So I talked to the owner and this is a month-to-month sublet. Some kind of family matter they did not want to disclose. But I still got a few other places we haven’t… ,“ Francine/Frannie said following Dean into the kitchen where he sat down on one of the high chairs at the kitchen counter and looked around the apartment. 

“I’ll take it.” 

“Oh, wonderful. I will let the owner know right away,” she beamed at him, her phone already at her ear.

Dean smiled as his eyes roamed around the apartment once again. There was something about this place he couldn’t quite put his finger on but whatever it was, for the first time in a very long time, he felt like this could be a home.

* * * *

A few days later, Dean moved what little stuff he had into the apartment. The bulk of it was clothes, but there were also a couple of battered paperbacks, his work stuff and a few other things he was finally able to take out of storage. Sam had promised to come by tomorrow to help him set up. But for now the plan was to just grab a bottle of beer from the fridge and maybe watch a film on Netflix.

Settling down on the couch, he propped his feet up on the small coffee table in front of him, his eyes travelling around the apartment and finally falling onto the stack of books he had put down on the coffee table earlier that day. There was something peeking out from one of them so he leaned forward and pulled it out. He carefully unfolded the photograph that had been taken about three years ago. It showed him, one arm wrapped around Lisa and in her arms she was holding Ben who was bundled up in a blanket. He didn’t remember what day the picture was taken but there were a few of their neighbours in the background so it must have been one of their barbecues.

His eyes fell on his own face, the face he didn’t really recognise anymore. The face of a man who had been so in love with his little family and who had thought he had finally found his place in the world. But of course, that hadn’t lasted. He was just not meant to be happy and he had accepted that fact after Lisa had taken Ben and vanished from his life without any warning. 

After Lisa had left, he had packed up his stuff, gotten into his car and driven around the country for months on end. He had taken up all kinds of odd jobs whenever he had run out of money, had done some hustling but had mostly stayed by himself for over a year - until Sam had managed to track him down in Oregon earlier this year. And when his little brother came to talk to him, effectively putting his job in jeopardy because he just left and got on the next plane to talk to Dean, Dean had agreed to stop running. And so Dean had spent the last six months living with Sam and his girlfriend Jess down in San Jose to try and get back to what Sam had called “normality”. He had struggled a lot in the beginning, had even gotten into his car a couple of times but eventually always decided to stay.

Now it was time for him to get his life back on track.

* * * *

It was some time after midnight and he was halfway through the first Indiana Jones film when he heaved himself off of the couch to get himself some water from the kitchen, which he drank in two long gulps before wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his t-shirt. It was getting late but he didn’t really feel tired so he opened the fridge and grabbed himself another bottle of beer. And as he closed the door again, he saw someone standing to his left.

Dean’s first instinct was to scream but he managed a very pathetic sounding yelp instead as he tried to not drop the bottle of beer he was now clutching against his stomach.

“Who are you?” Dean asked at the same time the guy in front of him exclaimed,

“There is nothing worth stealing here!”

“What? Dude…”

“I am sure I can find out where the nearest homeless shelter is.”

The guy’s eyes drifted all over his body and for a moment he felt exposed under the rather intense stare the guy was giving him. To be fair, he was wearing his comfortable sweat pants that had more holes in them than actual fabric by now and his shirt was too faded to even see what colour it had originally been. Feeling very self conscious, he put the bottle down on the counter and crossed his arms in front of his chest,

“I’m not homeless. I live here.”

The guy hesitated a moment before squinting his eyes, “No. You do not. Because I live here.”

Dean wasn’t sure what to say. Where had this guy even come from? Did he have a key because he could have sworn he didn’t hear anyone unlocking a door. And yet here he was, standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at this guy with his blue eyes and what frankly looked like absolutely absurd sex hair.

“Is that a ring? Have you ever heard of a coaster?” 

The guy had marched over to the dinner table, leaned over it and was now inspecting the mark Dean probably had left there earlier. But before Dean could even respond, the guy went off again,

“Or a trash can? This place is a mess. I am going to get a bucket and you are going to clean this up before you leave.”

Dean stared after him as he turned around and rushed off towards the bathroom. His brain was still trying to catch up with what was happening here - did he sign up for a shared house with a neat freak without knowing it?

“Wait. When did you…?”

Dean ran after him but when he stepped into the bathroom, the guy was gone, and there was not a single trace that he had ever been there. As Dean trudged back to the living room, he tried to come up with an explanation of what had just happened. 

Maybe he shouldn’t have another bottle of beer after all. Maybe he should just go to bed. It was never a good sign when you started seeing people, especially ridiculously attractive people with an obsession for cleanliness.

* * * *

Dean really, really would have liked to say that it was a one time thing. That he simply had had too much to drink. But he actually saw the guy another three times over the course of the next five days. He didn’t talk to him again, though. Mostly, because he kept vanishing as soon as Dean spotted him - in the fogged up bathroom mirror after he had taken a shower, in his peripheral vision when he sorted out his DVD collection or when he had opened his eyes after waking up in the morning. Maybe he just needed to spend more time with people. Talk to actual people instead of hiding in the apartment.

So he decided to text Sam and asked if he wanted to come over for a beer, even though his Sasquatch of a brother would probably end up asking him all kinds of unwanted questions and give him those pitying looks, he would just have to suck it up and deal with it.

And he was still trying to make up for all those years where he hadn’t seen much of Sam - when he had lived in Kansas with Lisa, and Sam had studied to become a lawyer at Stanford. Now, he could just get into his car and drive the 30 minutes it took to get to Sam’s place or for Sam to come over. Of course, Sam was now a fully fledged lawyer at a reputable law firm in San Jose and Dean couldn’t be prouder of him. And then there was his girlfriend Jess, who was a teacher at a local primary school and who was just so perfect for his brother that he couldn’t even be mad at them for being so disgustingly sweet when he had stayed with them in these past couple of months.

“So, what’s up?” Sam asked after they had settled down on the couch. Dean had been just about to press the on button for the TV when he turned to his brother and raised his eyebrows.

“What do you mean ‘what’s up’?”

“You called me two hours ago and asked if I wanted to hang out. I haven’t heard from you since you moved here, Dean.”

“What, I’m not allowed to hang out with my gigantor of a brother?”

Dean put his beer down on the table and leaned over to put his hand into Sam’s hair. His brother tried to dodge the attack but Dean managed to ruffle his long mane quite a bit before he leaned to the side and out of reach.

“Grow up, man.”

“I will grow up when you get a grown-up hair style, Samantha.”

Sam gave him one of his prized bitch faces, followed by a mumbled “jerk” to which Dean, of course, replied “bitch”.

“So, what’s up?”

Dean rolled his eyes at him, then grabbed his beer and took a big sip. How was he even going to bring this up without sounding like a lunatic?

“I, uh … I’ve been sort of seeing someone.”

“You’ve been… Dean, that is great. I mean, you cannot wallow around forever.”

“That’s not… no. That’s not what I meant. I mean, I’m seeing someone.”

Sam frowned at him for a moment and then Dean saw the realisation spread over his face.

“What, do you mean like a hallucination?”

Dean nodded slightly and continued after another swig of his beer, his voice sounding quite steady even though all he wanted was to stop talking. Why had he even brought it up in the first place?

“I’ve seen him a couple of times now.”

“Ooookay. Were you drunk when you saw him, Dean?”

“No. I mean, I had a couple of beers but...”

Dean trailed off when he saw the unimpressed bitch face his brother was giving him.

“What?!”

“How much have you had to drink, Dean?”

“Sam, I really…”

“Hey, I’m not judging you. But you tell me you’ve been seeing a person that should not be there. Sounds to me like you might’ve had a bit too much to drink.”

“Well, I’m having a drink right now and I’m not seeing anyone. Apart from your weird face.”

“You just need to get out of this apartment more. Come and hang with us, Jess has so many friends….”

“Sammy…”

“Dean, it’s been almost two years.”

“Don’t you think I know that? I want nothing more than go back to normal. But what Lisa did... “, Dean stopped when he realised he was almost yelling, tears stinging his eyes. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down and then continued, “... what she did. It destroyed me, man.”

“I know that. And I’m not saying you should forget it. But if you wanna live a normal life again, you need to start somewhere. And not coop yourself up in your apartment.”

Dean knew he was right. Of course his smart ass of a brother was right. Maybe he needed to find a job and spend some time doing something productive.

* * * *

After Sam had left a couple of hours later, Dean just crashed onto his bed without bothering to take off his clothes or his boots. And as he was drifting off to sleep, someone started to yell. Which was weird because he was alone.

Oh no.

He jerked upright and there he was, the guy with the blue eyes.

“What do you think you are doing? You are ruining my duvet with your filthy shoes,” the guy glared at him from the foot of the bed, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

Dean just stared at the guy for a long moment before he jumped off the bed while shaking his head and whispering “This is not real” to himself over and over again. He waited a few seconds and when he didn’t hear another sound, he slowly opened his eyes again. But the guy was still standing at the other side of the bed, his eyes glued to the flecks of mud that were stuck to the duvet.

“You’re not real.” he shouted, his eyes firmly set on the man in front of him.

“Excuse me?”

“You are not real!” Dean yelled again and turned around, marching towards the kitchen.

“Has no one taught you any manners?” the guy said as he followed behind Dean. “Why are you still here?”

“I live here.”

“Did you recently hit your head?”

“What? No.”

“Did you have a psychotic episode? Or see anything that should not be there?”

“I think I’m actually having one right now…,” Dean mumbled and the guy squinted even harder. Dean briefly wondered if the squinting had ever given him a headache because Dean was starting to get really tense just from watching it.

“I am going to call the police,” the guy announced like he was informing Dean about the weather forecast and then hurried over to where the phone was lying on the couch.

“What have you done with my phone?” Dean heard him say and as he walked over he saw the guy’s hand literally go through the phone whenever he tried to grab it. It was almost like… he wasn’t even sure what was happening here. It was like the phone was just some kind of hologram.

Dean stepped around the guy and grabbed the phone. And yes, it definitely was not the phone because he managed to grab it on the first attempt.

“Okay, so either I’m hallucinating or you are … a ghost,” Dean said while putting the phone back into the station. When he looked back at the guy, he got a blank look in response, followed by a deep frown and something that looked like an attempted eye roll.

“You think I am dead?”

“I don’t know, man. You remember any bright lights?”

The guy opened his mouth and then closed it again.

“What’s your name?” Dean took a step forward, waiting for the other man to respond.

“I am going to try the phone in the hall,” he suddenly exclaimed, ignoring Dean’s question, and then walked out into the hallway. 

Of course, when Dean followed him there he was gone.

* * * *

Dean didn’t find any sleep that night and he still wasn’t sure if blue eyes was actually a ghost, a figure of his imagination or some sort of side effect of a disease Dean didn’t know he had yet.

The next morning he decided to ring up the estate agent and see if she had any other information on the previous tenant or the owner of the apartment. But she told him she only knew what she had already told him before, that it was some kind of family matter. She also told him to stop being so nosy and that he should be glad he had found this place.

So Dean did the next thing that came to mind, and, an hour later, found himself in front of a bookstore in downtown Palo Alto called “Books of the Damned” that specialised in these kinds of things. Dean didn’t really believe in ‘these kinds of things’ but he refused to think this was all in his head. And he was more than happy to believe in it if that meant he could get rid of the guy who kept scolding him for not being a neat freak.

The inside of the shop was much bigger than one would think from looking at it from the outside. And the first thing Dean noticed as he walked through the door was that the shelves did not seem to have any sort of system to them. There were a lot of books, though, crammed into shelves that reached up to the ceiling.

After 5 minutes of working his way through one half of a shelf, he still hadn’t found anything that would help him.

“You should go with this one. It’s the definitive book on how to deal with any kind of spirit.”

He turned around to find a petite redhead smiling at him from the shelf on the other side of the aisle, her hands holding out a heavy looking leather-bound book.

“Uh, thanks,” he grabbed the book but just kept staring at her. How did she even know what he came here for? Did he look like someone who may have a ghost problem? Was that even something people could pick up on?

“Here to help. I’m Charlie,” she lifted her right hand and waved at him before she obviously decided it was a weird thing to do.

“Dean. This your store?”

“Yeah, me and my friend Ash bought it a few years ago. Felt like I needed to help all the lost souls out there,” she shrugged like it was a normal thing to say.

“Lost souls, huh?”

“Yes, I can sense certain things,” Charlie gave him another one of her bright smiles. Dean really liked her even though he didn’t believe in this hocus pocus at all. Well, at least he hadn’t before he had moved to Palo Alto.

“I can see you’re not convinced yet. What brings you here, then?”

“Shouldn’t you know that?”

“That is not how it works.”

“Of course it isn’t.”

Dean rolled his eyes at her but Charlie just ignored it and gave him another bright smile.

“Nice meeting you, Dean. I have to go back to my inventory but let me know if the book was of help with your roommate situation,” she winked at him then laughed at his perplexed expression and sauntered off to the back of the shop.

Shaking his head with a smile on his face, he lowered his eyes to look at the book she had handed him.

Definitive Guide to all Things Supernatural  
by Carver Edlund (5th edition) 2005

Well, at least it wasn’t “Ghosts for Dummies”.


	3. Chapter 3

Later that day he was sitting on the floor in the living room, surrounded by burning candles, web printouts on how to summon and/or vanquish ghosts and the book Charlie had given him. So far he had, probably very badly, recited a text in Latin, burned incense that smelled like something had died a long time ago and then had been buried in a pile of rotten eggs, and then he had burned a piece of paper with strange looking symbols on it. None of it had worked, though.

Maybe it really was just all in his mind. Maybe he should make an appointment to see a doctor, some sort of specialist. Or a psychologist, his unhelpful brain suggested.

He leaned back on his hands and stretched the stiff muscles in his lower back and legs, careful not to disturb the circle made of salt which was something one of the sources on the internet had suggested to keep vengeful spirits out. And considering how angry the guy had seemed, Dean wasn’t taking any chances.

“Pee break”, he proclaimed loudly to himself and heaved himself onto his feet. 

“You are not going to leave those candles unattended, are you?”

The gravelly voice from across the room made Dean yelp and lose his balance and nearly knock over said candles. And when he turned towards the voice, he saw blue eyes with his arms crossed in front of him and a look on his face that was very unimpressed. Dean was about to crack a joke about his serious demeanour but managed to snap his mouth shut before any of the words could tumble out. Instead he stepped closer to the guy and even offered him half a smile.

“Hey, uhm. I was wondering when you would show up again.” 

Dean saw something pass over the guy’s face, something resembling surprise, but it was gone the next moment. Then he was squinting his eyes at him again. 

“Okay. Let’s start again, yeah? I’m Dean. Dean Winchester.”

Instead of responding the guy just lowered his gaze, his eyes scanning the room like he was trying to remember something.

“You don’t know...”

“I, uh… I am certainly not going to tell a squatter my name.”

 

“I’m not a… look, something's going on here. And instead of going over the same argument again and again, why don’t we try and find out who you are and if you are, you know, dead or something?”

The guy was about to say something but then frowned and his eyes widened in distress as he seemed to realise something. Dean stepped a bit closer, and decided on another more careful approach.

“What do you do. When you’re not here, I mean.”

Dean watched the other man as a confused expression spread all over his face, and he looked so vulnerable at that moment that Dean couldn’t believe this guy was a ghost. Or at least not one of those ghosts he knew from films. Then again, Dean had never seen an actual ghost before so he wasn’t an expert or anything.

“Okay, you know what, if this was… is your apartment, then there might be something left with your name on it.”

Dean didn’t wait for a response, instead walked past blue eyes and straight towards the kitchen where he started to open drawers and cupboards, and finally ended up in front of the fridge. Idly, he flicked through the take out menus when his eyes caught a bright green post it note underneath all the leaflets.

“I am not sure what you are trying to prove here, but I certainly don’t …”

“Ha!” Dean exclaimed, holding up the post it note. He grinned at the guy and then put it down on the counter.

“ _Please leave the keys in the flower pot outside the door. Cas...teal._ Is that supposed to be a name?”

“It is Castiel, actually,” Castiel replied, his tone annoyed and short.

Dean looked up at him, surprised, and a moment later Castiel realised what had just happened. Looks like they had just kickstarted his… Castiel’s memory.

“Anything else you remember? What do you do?”

“Well, from what I can see, certainly more than you,” Castiel remarked haughtily, looking around the apartment that was littered with pizza boxes and empty bottles and cans.

“Hey, let’s not stray from the point here, Cas…”

“Do not call me that. It is Castiel.”

“Yeah, all right. But do you remember any dramatic events? An accident maybe?”

Dean was slowly walking towards Castiel again, who in turn was backing up slowly with a deep frown wrinkling his forehead.

“I am not … I am not dead,” Castiel sounded less sure this time, although he tried to hide that fact, quickly looking to the side.

“You sure about that?” Dean nodded towards the ground at Castiel’s feet. 

Castiel lowered his own gaze, and to his surprise, couldn’t even see the floor anymore, instead his body was split in half by the couch.

“Look around you, maybe there’s a light somewhere. Go into the light, Cas!”

“Don’t call me that,” Castiel leaned forward and tried to shove Dean away but instead just stumbled straight through him and to the ground.

“Hey, you okay there?” Dean asked with a small smile when he turned around to where Castiel was still half lying on the floor.

“I am not leaving. This is my home,” Castiel stated, his voice reaching a very angry level as he shot death glares at Dean.

And that is exactly what he did for the next 24 hours whenever he popped up again. 

Dean even locked himself into the bathroom with his coffee just to get some peace the next morning when Cas had decided to sing along to a song on the radio. Horribly off key, of course, and he didn’t even know all the words so he just sang along using made up words. 

But of course when Dean decided to ask Charlie for help two days later and then proceeded to drag her over to his apartment, to see the “roommate situation” with her own eyes, Castiel was nowhere to be found.

“And you’re sure he’s real?”

“You said you believed in ghosts!” Dean barely managed to cover his outrage at what Charlie was suggesting.

“I do. But …”

“No. I just need to coax him out. Castiel! Get your ass in here.”

Charlie and Dean both held their breath but nothing happened. 

“Dean, maybe…”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, come on. You annoyed me all day yesterday. Cas!”

“I told you not to call me that.”

That made Dean jump and his shoulder bumped into Charlie’s who gave him a questioning look. Dean ignored it and was instead frantically looking between Charlie and Castiel.

“What?” Charlie asked, nonplussed.

“You can’t see him?”

Charlie shrugged.

“No, I can’t…” but then she frowned, turning her head to where Castiel was currently standing.

“What is it?” Dean asked, looking between Castiel and Charlie with a wary expression.

“It’s … I can feel a presence. He… he doesn’t like you very much.”

“You’re shitting me,” Dean feigned shock, then rolled his eyes at her.

“What is this? Are you bringing around women now?” 

Dean looked back at Castiel who in turn was looking at Charlie with an expression that would be hilarious under any other circumstances. And Dean absolutely did not think that Squinty McSquintface was a bit adorable with his facial expressions. When he managed to tear his eyes from Castiel back to Charlie, he saw that something on his shelf had caught her attention.

“Charlie?”

“You got the Battlestar Galactica Blu Ray box set? Cool.”

“Interesting,” Dean heard Castiel commenting from where he was standing, watching Charlie grab the box set off the shelf and pet it slightly. He was about to ask the guy if he liked the show too when Castiel saw the expression on his face and elaborated,

“Looks like for some godforsaken reason you really are the only person who can see or hear me.”

“Go into the light, Cas,” Dean waved him off and then turned back to where Charlie was actually stroking the box set now.

“There is no light, Dean. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“You say that but maybe you haven’t looked properly.”

“You are infuriating.” 

Dean rolled his eyes and sat down on the couch, his eyes back on Charlie who was watching him, and the space where Castiel was standing, with a very scrutinizing expression. It probably looked very strange considering she was only able to hear Dean’s part of the conversation.

Then Charlie looked up, putting the box back on the shelf and looking at a distant spot on Dean’s right - where Cas was currently standing.

“Oh, I can sense some major vibes,” she said as her eyes moved back to Dean.

“What does that mean?” Dean wiped a hand over his face. This was exhausting. All he wanted was to lie down and sleep for a couple of hours. And have some peace and quiet.

“It means that this Castiel guy has a lot of energy for some reason. He’s not gonna leave. Dean… I don’t think he’s dead.”

With that, Dean turned his head towards Castiel and saw the smug smile creeping up on the guy’s face which he immediately tried to hide by biting down on his bottom lip.

“You, on the other hand, you need to deal with that thing of yours, mister.”

“What?” His head whipped back around to Charlie who was looking at him with a mixture of empathy and sternness.

“You need to let her go.”

Dean just stared at her for a long moment before he heard Castiel huff a humourless laugh behind him.

“So your girlfriend broke up with you and kicked you out? Is that why you are squatting in my apartment?” He could hear the smugness in Castiel’s voice but instead of turning around he put his head into his hands. This wasn’t actually happening right now. 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean said curtly, his voice gruff.

“Oh, I understand. It is okay to talk about me but it is not okay to talk about you and your ...?”

“Shut up!” Dean yanked his head up, got off the couch and shuffled past Charlie, who had a worried expression on her face but didn’t say a word. 

And then he just bolted out of the room, his boots resonating loudly on the hardwood floor, and towards the roof door. He really needed some fresh air right the fuck now. But as he was pulling the door open he heard Charlie’s words, a bit muffled but still clear,

“Word of advice, Castiel? Whatever it is that Dean is carrying around with him, it broke something in him. Don’t make fun of that.”

Dean closed his eyes and willed himself not to start crying. He managed to hold it in until he reached the last step and cold night air hit his face.

* * * *

He wasn’t quite sure how long he had been up here now, his fingers still firmly wrapped around the top bar of the metal balustrade that was lining the edge of the roof for safety. The cold metal helped him slow his heart rate down after it had felt like his heart wanted to break out of his ribcage.

It hadn’t been the first time he had had one of these episodes in the last couple of years. But even though he was getting better at dealing with them, it still took him some time to calm himself down again after. Maybe he should actually think about what Sam had said a few months ago, about talking to someone professional. But every time Dean actually thought about it, it made his insides crawl. Why couldn’t he just ignore it and move on with his life? That was what everyone else did, wasn’t it?

“Dean?” 

Dean let his head drop between his arms, still not letting go of the bars in front of him, and closed his eyes to take a few long breaths. “If you came up here to pity me, don’t bother.”

When Castiel didn’t say anything, Dean looked up and found Castiel standing to his right, his eyes on the city in front of them. They stood there in silence for a while until Dean sighed and turned his back to lean against the balustrade, still expecting Castiel to comment on his sorry excuse of a life.

“Dean, I am really sorry for what I said before. I, uh… it occurred to me that I do not know you. I shouldn’t have assumed…”

He watched Castiel for a moment. His expression was apologetic, his eyes so wide and friendly that for a moment Dean wondered if anyone could stay mad at the guy when he looked at them like that. And Dean suddenly realised how scary this all must be for him. He couldn’t imagine waking up one day, as some kind of a ghost, not remembering his own name, and then finding a stranger in his apartment. And then said stranger yells at you aggressively for no apparent reason. He probably owed the guy some kind of explanation.

So instead of locking himself up again and brushing it off as nothing, he took a deep breath in and just went for it.

“Her name was Lisa.”

Dean was quite surprised how steady his voice sounded. He had tried to talk about this before - with Sam, with Jess and even with his uncle Bobby - but he had never been able to even say her name without his voice breaking. Maybe talking to someone who didn’t know him would actually help.

Dean took a deep breath, making sure he was not looking at Castiel before he continued,

“We met about 5 years ago. I pretty much fell in love with her on the spot, so when she told me she was pregnant with someone else’s child a few weeks later... it was a struggle. But I was so in love with her that I told her we’d figure something out. And when she had Ben, I just felt like he was mine, you know. And for two years we were this perfect family.”

Dean smiled at the memory and how, back then, he couldn’t believe his luck. Of course, in hindsight, he couldn’t believe how stupid he had been believing it would last.

“Shortly after Ben’s second birthday... I came home after work and Lisa and Ben were gone. Packed all their stuff. Only thing she left behind was a fucking letter,” Dean closed his eyes and only then noticed he had started to cry, so he quickly wiped the tears away with the sleeve of his shirt. Not wanting to stop now he took another deep breath and continued,

“She told me that Ben’s father had reached out to her that made her realise how much she’d missed him. So she took Ben and went back to him. I tried to find her but ...”

There were sirens in the background and Dean waited for them to pass before he went on, trying to work up enough courage to explain why he had stayed with Lisa in the first place - the part people always judged him for.

“I had this little family which I’d never really had before. Both my parents died in a car crash just before I turned 18. After that it was just me and Sam, my little brother, and uncle Bobby. And when Sam went off to college on the other side of the country, I just felt so alone. And with Lisa and Ben, I wasn’t anymore.”

Dean let his face drop to his chest. He had gotten the whole story out without breaking down, so that was a plus. Now he was bracing himself for whatever judgement Castiel was about to pass onto him. How he shouldn’t have been so blind and believed that Lisa would just stay with him when she could be with Ben’s father. How he should have just manned up. And whatever Castiel would say, it would never be as bad as what he told himself every day since - that he had been a complete idiot for wanting to be happy and that he didn’t deserve it anyway.

A few moments passed but Castiel didn’t say anything. And with each passing moment, Dean felt more uneasy, because he knew what was going to happen next and for some reason, hearing it from a stranger seemed worse somehow. So he decided to rip off the bandaid, “Come on, man. Just lay it on me.” 

And when he finally looked up, he saw nothing but confusion all over Castiel’s face, his head slightly tilted to the side. 

“Dean.”

And Dean doesn’t know how it was possible but hearing Cas say his name like that broke something inside him. He barely knew the guy but it was like by hearing him say his name so emphatically, it made things a bit easier on him.

Castiel stepped a bit closer and reached out with his hand, probably to put it on his shoulder, only to realise that he couldn’t touch Dean. So instead he let it drop again and smiled encouragingly at Dean.

“Even if you don’t think you deserve to be happy, Dean, you do. I admire you for being brave enough to try.”

Castiel’s smile widened then. It briefly crossed Dean’s mind that he really liked when Castiel smiled.

“Not that I don’t appreciate it, Cas. But why are you saying that?”

“I don’t know…but I don’t remember if I was happy. Before. I mean, should I not remember if there is something that makes… or made me happy? But I do not remember anything. All I am aware of is when you are there.”

“What?”

Dean was taken aback, Cas was only “aware” when he was with Dean? How was that even possible? No, strike that. He really should not ask such questions while talking to someone who may as well be a ghost.

“It is almost like there is a bond. I am only awake, for a lack of a better word, when I am with you. And when I am not, I don’t exist.”

Dean noticed how Castiel had started to pace around, his eyes not focusing on anything and his voice sounding a bit panicky. 

“Okay, why don’t we try and find out who you are then?”

“But how?”

The look Castiel gave Dean then was heartbreaking, to say the least. Of course he was freaking out. He didn’t know what was going to happen to him or what had happened to him to get him here.

“Hey, Cas. We’re gonna figure this out, okay?”

Dean offered him a smile and Castiel finally looked back at him, stopping mid-stride. And whatever he saw in Dean’s expression must have calmed him down a bit because he nodded with a small smile in return.

* * * *

Back downstairs in the kitchen, Castiel pointed out a green post-it on the counter, this one from Charlie, who must have left while they had been upstairs.

_Good luck to the both of you. Give me a call if you need me. 555-5986 - Charlie_

Dean quickly put her number in his phone, made a mental note to text her later, and then focused back on the task at hand by grabbing a notebook and a pen from the table.

“Dean?” 

“Hmm?” 

“Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?”

“Well, either I keep ignoring you and move out. Or, because I’m not gonna move out and it’s kinda hard to ignore you, I can help you figure out who you are and what happened to you.”

Dean looked up from the notebook and offered Castiel a small smile. He doesn’t know why he didn’t even consider not helping Castiel. Even if Castiel promised to just disappear, he would try and figure this out because it was bugging him to no end to not know what was going on. 

Also, that was what friends are for, or whatever the hell you would call a ghost living in your apartment that you had just told all about the most heartbreaking experience of your life.


	4. Chapter 4

It was too late to go wander around the neighbourhood or go around knocking on their neighbors’ doors so they decided to continue the next morning.

Dean was tired but he was also riled up from everything that had happened in the last few hours. So he sat down on the couch and was about to ask Castiel if he wanted to watch a movie until then but he had already vanished. Instead of a movie Dean put on the Discovery Channel since that always managed to make him sleepy, but in the end he didn’t really need it and conked out after five minutes of some guy talking about the rainforest.

When he woke up the next morning the sun was already up and he was still alone in the apartment. The tv was still on so he switched it off and decided to take a quick shower before heading out to talk to the other people in the building.

As noon approached he had talked to most of the neighbors - an old lady with two tiny dogs that looked more like rats than anything even remotely related to canines, a guy about Dean’s age who had been in the middle of painting his apartment, covered in paint and dust, and a stressed out woman in business attire who had been on her way to the office and had briskly told him to fuck off. None of them seemed to know anything about Castiel, though. A few of them didn't even know someone had previously lived in that apartment. 

So when he got to his last stop, the door at the far end of the downstairs hallway, and right below his apartment, he didn’t have much hope left that this would get him any more information. He would just have to wait for Castiel to turn up again so they could walk around outside for a while to see if he recognised anything.

He rang the bell and stretched his neck by slowly tilting his head to both sides, which didn’t do a whole lot to alleviate the stiffness in his shoulders. He hadn’t done any exercising since he had moved to California, even though Sam had vehemently tried to get Dean to go jogging with him multiple times. But he really needed get back into it, maybe look up a Krav Maga training center in the area at some point.

He was just about to turn around and head back upstairs when there was a sound coming from the inside, a faint patter of feet before the door swung open and he found himself standing in front of a tall brunette woman in workout clothes, her hair tied back into a bun and a big smile appearing on her face when her eyes fell on Dean. 

“Well, hello there,” she said in a British accent that immediately caught Dean’s attention.

“Uh, hey. I’m Dean. The new tenant in 2B?”

"Dean. It is very nice to meet you. I am Bela. How may I help you?”

She leaned against the doorframe, flashing him a very salacious smile that made him cringe on the inside but his eyes roamed over her body on autopilot, nonetheless. She was very attractive, and under different circumstances he probably would have flirted with her. But he was on a mission, and unlike his treacherous body, he also wasn’t very interested in any of this right now.

“Just wondering, the guy who used to live in 2B. Uh, dark hair, about yay high …,” he lifted his hand up in front of his forehead, and surprised himself when he mentioned “blue eyes” after that. Why would he even say that? But luckily, Bela interrupted this dangerous trail of thoughts,

“Oh, yes. I talked to him a few times. He was always in a rush.”

“You ever catch his name?”

“Yeah, he had a really unusual name. C-something. But his last name was Novak. I remembered that because he looks a bit like that guy from ....”

Dean didn’t hear the rest of that sentence because his mind was racing. He finally knew Castiel's full name. Now he could google him again and find out more than just the fact that his first name had biblical roots.

He got yanked back to the present when Bela put her hand on his arm, slowly dragging it down the side while tapping her fingers against his shirt.

“Dean, would you like to come in for a cup of coffee? You can tell me more about yourself.”

“I-uh…sorry. I gotta go. Maybe later,” he blurted out and turned around to walk away. He really couldn’t deal with this right now.

“Oh. All right. It was very nice to meet you, Dean,” he heard her say as he climbed the stairs. He quickly ran up the steps towards his apartment. And as soon as he had closed the door behind himself a few moments later, he quickly whispered, “Cas? You here?”

When he didn’t get a response, he went and grabbed his laptop from the desk instead and set it up on the kitchen counter. He got himself a glass of water while he waited for the computer to boot up, and then sat down on one of the high chairs.

“All right, Mr Novak. Let’s see who you are then.”

Dean typed the name into the search bar and hit enter. There were a couple thousand results and, after he had quickly skimmed the website results, most of which were some sort of scholarly articles that wouldn’t give him anything useful, he eventually clicked on “images”. 

The first picture he saw of Castiel was him posing in front of a grey background, with a very serious look on his face, a suit that looked too big on him and a crooked blue tie. He clicked on the picture and was redirected to the website of Stanford Health Care. And what do you know, it looked like Castiel was a resident doctor at the local hospital.

There wasn’t a lot of information on the website so he went back to the pictures. And as he scrolled down the results page, another picture caught Dean’s attention - it showed Castiel, wearing green scrubs and what looked like a cheap plastic toy stethoscope in his ears, and he was holding the lower part to his own heart. He also had the gummiest, toothiest smile on his face and Dean snorted involuntarily. What a complete dork, he thought and then noticed a pull in his chest that he hadn’t felt in a long time. But before he could think about that too much, he heard someone shuffling next to him.

“What are you smiling about?”

Dean looked up from the screen and turned to his left where Castiel was standing, awkwardly smiling at him.

“Well, hello Dr. Novak,” Dean quipped, feeling the corners of his mouth pull up into an even bigger grin.

Castiel's smile faltered, and was replaced by crinkles between his brows and a slow head tilt.

“Here, come and look at this,” Dean clicked on the picture which led him to the website of San Diego School of Medicine. The description of the photo said “Valedictorian Castiel Novak, class of ‘12”.

“I’m a doctor...,” Dean wasn’t quite sure if it was a question or a statement but then proceeded to open the other tab he had looked at earlier, the one with Castiel's profile at SHC. 

“Yeah, a doctor of Emergency Medicine,” Dean looked up at Castiel who was now perched over his left shoulder, trying to read the text on the website.

“It doesn’t have a lot of information but it says that you are “inactive”...,” He was still looking at Castiel when he said that but trailed off when he saw the worry fall over Castiel's face. 

Castiel only dropped his gaze and stepped back, turning his back to Dean and running his hands through his hair, making it stick into every direction. Dean had to suppress a smile, and then caught himself thinking about running his fingers through that same hair. Time and a place, Winchester. 

“Cas?”

“Hmm?”

Dean hesitated. What was he supposed to say in moments like this? “I’m sure ‘inactive’ means nothing?” No. They needed more information. 

“Cas, I think we should go on a quick road trip,” Dean didn’t wait for Castiel to respond, instead closed the laptop and headed towards the door where he grabbed his keys and then left the apartment without another word.

“Where are you going?”

Dean just grinned at Castiel when he walked out of the building and saw him standing on the sidewalk, right next to his car.

“I am going to the Emergency Department at SHC, you wanna tag along?”

Castiel just stared at him and then his features relaxed, and then he looked at the Impala and raised his eyebrows, a small smile on his face as he quietly said, “This is your car?”

“Yes, that is baby. Best car in the world.”

Castiel just nodded at that, the small smile still on his lips and then just sort of moved right through the door and inside the car. Dean would never get used to that, no matter how many times he saw it happening. 

“Okay, but how do you walk through doors but don’t fall through the seat?” Dean asked after he had climbed into the car a moment later.

“I have to concentrate to not fall through but it works most of the time. Well, it works for inanimate objects at least.”

“Huh. Maybe we should make notes and write a book about this. We could be millionaires,” he wiggled his eyebrows at Castiel who in turn just rolled his eyes at him, but Dean still saw the grin on his face before he turned to look to the other side.

Dean started the car and headed downtown. The traffic was quite heavy at this time of day, so it took them about 20 minutes to get to the hospital complex, along the tree lined highway that went straight through the city and towards San José. Dean took a right turn just past the shopping center and followed the signs leading them to the visitors parking lot.

“Do you recognise it?” Dean asked after he had parked the car and they were now approaching the main building.

“I-I think so? Let’s go inside.” 

Castiel practically ran past him, and Dean only barely stopped himself from yelling after him. Instead he walked over to the sign that had listed all departments, trying to find the information about where the emergency department was located.

When he stepped through the doors leading to the emergency medicine department a couple of minutes later, his senses were immediately flooded with the complete chaos all around him. There were a lot of people in scrubs running around with trays with various tools, and then there were patients covered in blood and some of them were crying, and Dean really did not want to be here.

“Can I help you, sir?” 

Dean turned around to see one of the nurses standing in front of him. She was wearing blue scrubs and her hair was tied together at the back in a messy bun. She looked really tired and exhausted, but still managed to give him a polite smile. 

“I’m looking for a doctor? His name is Cas... Castiel Novak?”

Dean wasn’t sure what he had said but the woman’s expression changed dramatically, her smile faltering from one moment to the next. She suddenly looked deeply saddened.

“I am sorry but… Dr. Novak is not an active member of staff right now.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

She looked at him in surprise, like she had expected him to know something. She quickly recovered when she realised he obviously didn’t.

“You should go up to the third floor, talk to Dr. Dupree in Neurology.” 

Her beeper went off then and she quickly checked it before giving him an apologetic smile and then ran off and vanished into a room down the hall. 

Dean walked around a corner, following the sign that stated “Neurology”. And five minutes later what he saw about ten feet away made him stop in his tracks for a short moment. In front of him was a tall blonde guy typing away on his phone. And behind him was Castiel, looking over the guy’s shoulder with a focused look on his face.

“There you are,” Dean blurted out without thinking.

“Excuse me?” The blonde guy was looking at Dean now and Dean finally managed to tear his gaze away from Castiel when he realised the guy was talking to him.

“Yeah, sorry. I-uh… I’m looking for Dr. Dupree?”

“You found him. Balthazar Dupree. How can I help you?” the doctor replied as he pocketed his phone.

“I’m looking for Castiel Novak.”

The doctor suddenly had an expression on his face very similar to the one he had seen on the nurse earlier, only he somehow looked even sadder.

“May I ask who you are?”

Dean looked at Castiel who in turn suddenly looked like he was panicking, his eyes wide and and his lips tightly pressed together.

“Uh, my name is Dean. Dean Winchester.”

“Are you a friend of Castiel’s?” 

“Tell him you are my boyfriend!” Castiel said with a sense or urgency, finally looking back at Dean.

“What?” Dean just barely managed to keep his eyes on Balthazar who did a double take at what he assumed was a question aimed at him and not the ghost of a guy that was standing behind him.

“I asked how you knew Castiel.”

“You need to tell him you are my boyfriend, Dean. He is not gonna tell you anything otherwise.”

Dean just stared at him before clearing his throat and trying to sound as convincing as possible.

“He-uh… we’re dating.”

Balthazar raised his eyebrows at him, looking at him like he wasn’t quite sure what Dean had just said. Well, Dean wasn’t quite sure what was happening, either, if he was completely honest.

“You’re his boyfriend?” Dean had to give it to the guy, who was trying really hard not to sound too surprised. He wondered why that was.

“Yes, I am.”

“I’m having a hard time believing that,” the guy replied, crossing his arms in front of him, eyebrows knitted together, assessing Dean with a look that Dean didn’t like one bit.

Dean’s eyes fell on Castiel who looked like he was trying to remember something, only to look back at Balthazar the next moment with a fond smile,

“He and I were friends. He means well.”

Dean nodded and then addressed the doctor,

“We were quite... recent. And I’ve been away for a while.”

“Ah. So, you don’t know about the accident?”

“Accident?” Dean frowned and looked back at Castiel who was staring at something in front of him. He looked so lost all of a sudden and Dean just wanted to wrap his arms around him and tell him it was going to be okay.

“There was a traffic accident about two month ago. Castiel sustained a traumatic head injury, a few broken ribs and a lot of bruising. The bruises and the ribs have healed but the head injury was quite extensive. He’s been in a coma since and is so far not responding to any treatment.”

Dean tried to focus on what the doctor was telling him but all he saw was Castiel, his eyes firmly trained on the ground in front of his feet. He looked absolutely heartbroken.

“Can I-uh… can I see him?”

“Yes, of course. He is just down the hall, room 502. But you are not on the visitation list yet so I can only give you a few minutes.”

“Okay. Thanks,” Dean forced out a tight smile and then turned around, slowly making his way towards room 502. 

When he looked back to where Castiel had stood earlier he didn’t see him anymore. So Dean kept walking, taking a few deep breaths before entering the room. 

The first thing Dean noticed after stepping inside was Castiel who was standing in front of a bed. Then he noticed the steady beeping from a heart monitor and also the steady rhythm of a ventilator. Finally, his eyes fell on the body that Castiel was looking at - which was his own body and yet it looked so different. There were so many tubes and wires around his head and chest, connecting him to various machines and presumably keeping him alive. His face looked incredibly pale and lifeless, the person in that hospital bed looked nothing like the guy Dean had been coming to see as a friend.

“Cas?”

When Castiel didn’t reply, Dean stepped closer and bent his head to catch the guy’s eyes.

“Cas? Buddy, you are not dead.”

“No. But I am in a coma. And it has been over two months which means chances are I am not going to wake up,” 

Castiel said that last part without any emotions as if he was talking about a patient and not himself. Dean would have found it endearing if it weren’t so damn depressing at the same time.

“Okay. But we found your body, can’t you just, I don’t know, reconnect with it?”

“Dean…” 

“Don’t “Dean” me. Have you tried this before? No. How d’you know this isn’t how it’s done?”

Castiel looked at him and for a split second Dean could have sworn he saw a smile creep across his features. Then Castiel nodded and carefully stepped around the bed, and slowly moved his right hand to his shoulder. But his hand went right through him.

“Do you feel anything?”

“No. There is nothing,” Castiel let his arm drop back down and turned towards the window behind him.

Dean walked around the other side of the bed, carefully touching Castiel's left hand with his fingertips.

“What was that?” Castiel's head whipped around, looking at Dean and when he saw what he was doing he looked up at Dean with a mixture of surprise and wonder.

“This is the first time that I felt anything since….”

The door opened behind them and Balthazar stepped inside. Dean quickly pulled his hand back and stepped away from the bed like he had just done something he wasn’t supposed to.

“Dean, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave now.”

Dean nodded at the doctor, then turned back to Castiel and smiled at him, mouthing “let’s go”. But then he noticed the sad look in Castiel's eyes and hesitated.

“I am gonna stay here.”

Dean looked at him, his brow furrowed. But Castiel just dropped his gaze, looking down at his body. And when he looked back up at Dean the next moment, his expression carried so many emotions that it almost gave Dean whiplash.

“Thank you, Dean. For everything.”

Dean looked at him for a long moment, trying to think of something to say that would convince Castiel to come back with him. But what else could they do really? What else could Dean do to help him? Instead he touched Castiel's hand once again and then turned around and followed the doctor back outside.

The last thing he heard before the door closed was a very quiet “Goodbye, Dean”.


	5. Chapter 5

Castiel spent the rest of the morning watching as the body in front of him breathed in and out at a steady rhythm. He had tried everything from focusing to meditating but he just could not connect with his body.

His body. He knew it was his, obviously and there still was a kind of connection there, he could almost feel it vibrate between them. But he had no idea on how to go on from here.

He tried to remember anything from his medical training that might be helpful here but most of it was just faint flashes in the back of his mind, just like the other things he couldn’t remember. But from looking at the monitor next to his body, he could tell that his vital signs were stable and that there were some brain functions left. It wasn’t much but enough to not be considered brain dead.

It had crossed his mind earlier that he might be stuck like this until his body died. But what if he didn’t wake up at all, would he have to spend the next 50 odd years like this - existing without being able to talk to anyone, be seen or even touch someone? Well, anyone that was not Dean. Because for some reason Dean was able to see him and talk to him. He took solace in the fact that even if he couldn’t talk to anyone else, there was at least Dean. 

But could he really expect that from Dean? If he wasn’t going to wake up, he could be stuck like this for years or decades. And he couldn't subject Dean to this forever, could he? Castiel sighed and started to pace around the room. Maybe there were other people like him in this hospital, maybe...

“Hey, Cassie. How are you this morning?”

“Oh, don’t call me that. You know I hate it.”

For a second Castiel forgot that his sister couldn’t hear him and was about to roll his eyes when he realised Anna had just come into the room. He watched her place a vase with sunflowers on the small table across from his bed and then sit down on the chair and take his hand into hers.

Though when Castiel looked down at his own hand, this time he didn’t feel a thing. Another thing on the list of things that Dean could do and no one else could.

“Anna?”

The door opened and Balthazar stepped inside, in his hand, a patient file Castiel assumed was his own.

“I saw you come in. How are you doing?”

“Been better,” Anna looked up at the doctor with a sad smile and it made Castiel’s heart ache to know that he couldn’t tell her that he was still here. 

“Anna, I think we need to talk.”

Anna’s squeezed her eyes shut and Castiel turned his head to look back at Balthazar and suddenly realised he had heard these words before, had said them enough times himself to know that this was not the good kind of talk.

“It’s been over two months since the accident and while his vital signs are stable, they have not improved over the last few weeks. His brain activity is deteriorating daily and,” the doctor took a deep breath and then continued, “we have taken some fairly extraordinary measures to give Castiel more time. But... we’ve reached a point where we need to make a decision.”

Balthazar, who had been standing at the foot of Castiel’s bed turned around, grabbed another chair and sat down next to Anna. When he spoke again his voice was subdued and Castiel had to step closer to hear his next words. 

“When Castiel started working for this hospital, he was asked to sign release papers, just like every other staff member here. He… he signed what is called an advanced directive. He chose not to receive treatment that would prolong death. We have done all the necessary tests twice. Then did them again to make sure but… Anna, his brain just cannot cope with all the trauma.”

Anna lowered her head and put it in her hands, taking a few deep breaths before she looked back at Balthazar. There were tears on her face and it felt like a punch to the gut. Here was his big sister, the one person who had been a constant for him his whole life and who had always known what to do when he didn’t, looking so utterly distraught and hopeless.

“I-uh… I’ve read about these people who have woken up from comas. Despite extensive trauma and no chance of recovery. What if Castiel is one of them, Balthazar?”

Anna had started to wipe at her face with the sleeves of her shirt, and it hit Castiel that he had never seen Anna like this. Not when their mother had died when they had both still been kids and not when their father had taken off a couple of years later.

“Anna, we know so little about the human brain and how it works but what I can tell you is that the chances of that are infinitesimal. And do you really want to disregard Castiel’s wishes and possibly risk he might be suffering from all of this? Even if he wakes up, chances are he won’t be able to move or communicate in any way.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Anna clasping Castiel’s hand in hers again. Castiel’s mind was racing. He had always thought that prolonging the inevitable would be the last thing he wanted if something like this happened to him. How could he have known that it would not be that straightforward.

“What do we do now?”

“I am going to run some more tests. You should go home, get some rest and come back tomorrow morning. Take the day off and take your time to say goodbye. And then...”

Instead of listening to Balthazar explain to Anna what exactly would be happening tomorrow, Castiel turned away from them and hurried out of the room, straight through the door and out of the hospital. 

He didn’t need to hear that it could sometimes take a while for the body to give up the fight, that Castiel may very well breathe on his own for a while before he went into cardiac arrest. That they would give him a sedative to make sure he wasn’t in any pain, and that, after a few hours or even days, his body would slowly succumb to death. He really did not need to hear that.

What he needed was help. And he needed it quickly.


	6. Chapter 6

It was early afternoon when Dean got back to his apartment, after he had driven around for a while to clear his head. He closed the door, dropped his keys on the small table and held his breath to listen for a moment.

“Cas?”

He waited a few moments, just to be sure, but there was no response.

It was strange. It felt like he was just waiting for someone else to come home. Because he had gotten so used to having Castiel around in the last few days. Even if he had only spent a few hours with him, knowing that he was not going to come back was just a really fucking depressing thought. Then again, Castiel would probably want to come back eventually. Once he had woken up and was able to move back here. Dean would happily go and find a new place if that meant he could maybe go out for a few drinks with Castiel once he felt better.

If that was something Castiel wanted, of course. Dean didn’t want to impose on the guy and make him deal with his broken self after having survived a near fatal accident and a coma. Who was he kidding anyway, Castiel had been quite eager to stay at the hospital after they had found his body. Of course he wasn’t gonna hang with a guy who was so broken because of something that he couldn’t even talk about most of the time.

Someone knocked on the door just as he was about to crash on the bed and sleep for the rest of the day. He didn’t really feel like dealing with anyone, but got up and answered the door anyway. And then Bela was striding inside without a warning, a bashful smile on her face and a see through shirt.

“Hey, so this is a bit embarrassing but I locked myself out of my flat. And I left my mobile in there, too. Would you mind if I use your phone to call the locksmith?”

“Uh-sure.”

Dean slowly closed the door and walked over to where Bela was making herself comfortable on his couch. He handed her his cell phone and as she looked for the number, he went to the kitchen and gulped down a glass of water. And when Dean joined Bela on the couch, she told him the locksmith would be here in 15 minutes. Obviously, Bela had plans on how to spend the next 15 minutes because next thing Dean knew she was half sitting in his lap, both her hands on his thighs. 

Of course, Dean knew what was going on here. Bela was a very beautiful and attractive woman who knew what she wanted and was not afraid to get it, either. That he could appreciate. And if this had happened about 6 months ago, Dean would have wasted no time and slept with her.

Because up until then, he had spent the majority of his nights in bars and cheap motels, sleeping with scantily clad women, receiving and giving blowjobs from people in various states of inebriation and, sometimes, sleeping with random guys in the backseat of his Impala. All of this while mostly being drunk off his ass, without remembering much from said encounters the next morning. He had tried to substitute family with blowjobs behind filthy bars, quickies in motel rooms and all kinds of other messed up shit, and it had taken him a couple of months to get it out of his system. He wasn’t proud of those months but eventually he had realised how fucked up it was and had cut down on the drinking and had avoided bars to not even get tempted or fall back into old habits. He hadn’t had sex with anyone in months. And now that temptation was literally in front of him, he wasn’t even interested.

Bela was talking about something now, smiling and leaning forward so her shirt was showing off her cleavage. Dean’s eyes dropped down to her naked skin and then back up and the smile on her lips made it obvious that she had seen him sneak a peek.

“So, Dean. Do you like what you see?”

“You-uh. You want a beer?” Dean scrambled to his feet, trying to get as far away from her as possible. He might not be interested but he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of giving in, either. 

He quickly walked around the kitchen counter and grabbed two bottles of beer, then proceeded to open one bottle while turning around and nearly bumping into Bela because she was suddenly standing very close behind him. She took the bottles from him, put them down on the counter next to her and then backed him up against the fridge. Dean stared at her, too shocked to say or do anything else. Bela looked up at him with a salacious smile as she put her hands on his chest, tracing the lines of his flannel shirt. Then she leaned in even closer and he prepared himself to push her back but then her lips brushed over his cheek and he heard her whisper,

“Where can I freshen up?” 

“Do-down the hall, on the left.”

“Thank you,” she pushed her body against his while trying to get past him, which, honestly, there was enough space for her to squeeze past him without rubbing herself all over him. He watched her saunter out of the kitchen, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It wasn’t that he did not find her attractive. His body’s reaction was a tell tale sign for that. But he just wasn’t interested right now.

When Dean finally had regained enough of his composure, he opened his eyes and then nearly gave himself a heart attack when he let out a high pitched yelp, and only just about managed to not swipe both beer bottles off the counter in the process. Because Castiel was standing right across the room, his head tilted to the side, squinting his eyes at him.

“Dude. We should get you a bell,” Dean said with a quiet laugh and then walked over to him, “What’re you doing back here?”

Castiel gave him a look that Dean couldn’t quite decipher, averting his eyes to look down to the floor like he wasn’t quite sure himself.

“Dean, is everything okay?”

Dean heard Bela yell from outside the kitchen, but he didn’t turn around because Castiel was back and he looked like he was about to have a breakdown. 

“Dean?”

And Dean finally tore his eyes off Castiel and turned to look at Bela who was leaning against the doorframe, in nothing but some very flimsy looking panties and her bra.

“I am sorry. I should not have intruded. You obviously have other things to do,” Castiel said quickly.

“What? No.”

“You don’t need to explain, Dean. It is none of my business.”

Dean was about to tell Castiel that this was not what it looked like when Bela stepped right into his personal space and pressed herself into his chest. It took him a moment to peel his eyes away from Bela and back to Castiel, who now looked very uncomfortable and about ready to bolt.

“Cas...”

Castiel looked up at Dean, a tiny smile on his lips that looked so out of place that it made Dean do a double take.

“I am going to go now.”

“Cas, I...”

“My name’s Bela.”

It took a second for Dean’s brain to catch up with what was happening as Castiel turned around and walked out of the kitchen and towards the roof. When he looked back at Bela, she was now standing at the couch, her arms crossed in front of her chest and her eyebrows raised in an unimpressed scowl.

Dean panicked, not sure what to do about Castiel when the doorbell rang. So instead he stormed out of the room to collect Bela’s clothing and also grabbed a towel to wrap her in before he threw her out of the apartment with a loud bang of the door and a “keep the towel” yelled through the closed door.

It took him a second to find his bearings but then he bolted up the stairs to the roof, almost tripping on the last step as he came stumbling outside.

“What are you doing?”

Dean pulled himself upright on the doorframe and then slowly moved towards Castiel who was standing just a few feet away from Dean.

“Came to talk to you.”

“What about... Bela? Dean, I am sorry. I really did not mean to intrude.”

“Dude, relax. She threw herself at me but... I wasn’t interested.” 

Dean wasn’t sure what made him say that but he saw the relief on Castiel’s face and smiled at him. They stood there for a few long moments, looking at each other with shy smiles until Dean remembered something,

“So, not that I’m not glad you’re back, but why are you?”

Castiel's whole stance changed then, his whole expression and body language becoming very tense and uneasy.

“They are going to take me off life support tomorrow,” Castiel took in a shaky breath, dropping his gaze to the floor. 

Dean just stared at him for a long moment, unable to process what he had just heard. Surely, they couldn’t just do that when Castiel was still very much alive and standing in front of him?

It was Castiel who finally broke the silence,

“It makes sense. My vital signs are not improving and my brain activity is getting worse every day.”

“But you are still here. And if they turn the machines off… no. How long do we have to convince them to not go through with this?”

“Less than 20 hours.”

“Yeah, okay. All right. Let’s-uh … Let’s go and talk to your sister.”

He didn’t wait for Castiel to respond and instead just turned around and walked back downstairs to grab his keys and drive back to the hospital. As he was putting on his jacket, Castiel suddenly appeared next to him, a worried look on his face,

“Dean… what are you going to tell her?”

“I don’t know, I just have to come up with something.”

“Anna is not going to believe that you have been talking to her comatose brother.”

“Well, I’ll just stick with the dating story and then we go from there.”

Castiel sighed, “Do you really think this is a good idea?”

“Yes.”

It came out sounding much more sure than Dean actually was, but he just had to make it work. Because if it didn’t work, well, the alternative was worse. And as he watched Castiel chew on his bottom lip, probably trying to convince himself that this was the best plan they had, he smiled reassuringly at him.

“Don’t worry, Cas. We’ll figure something out.”

“Thank you, Dean.”

“You can thank me after we’ve saved your life.”

* * * *

They found Anna sitting in front of Castiel's hospital room an hour later, talking to someone on her phone. And as Castiel kept moving towards her, Dean sat down on one of the chairs that lined the hallway, about twenty feet away and watched Castiel sit down on the chair next to Anna, his head turned away from Dean.

He couldn’t hear what Anna was saying, so he occupied himself with his own phone as he waited for her to hang up. A few minutes later he saw Castiel approaching him, while his eyes moved to where Anna was leaning against the wall, the phone lying next to her on the chair.

“She all right?” Dean whispered when Castiel was close enough to hear him but still out of Anna’s earshot. 

But Castiel didn’t respond, instead just looked back at his sister miserably and when he finally turned back to Dean he had a pained expression on his face. 

“I am not sure we should do this,” he whispered and was about to say something else when they heard someone approach them. It was Anna, her arms wrapped around her chest, dragging her feet over the mint green linoleum floor not even paying any attention to Dean as she stuffed her phone into a small bag that she was clutching in her hand.

“Anna?”

It took her a moment but she eventually looked up at him, her eyes puffy and red and so full of exhaustion. For a brief moment, he wondered what he would do if he were in her situation and Sam… he couldn’t imagine how hard this must be for her.

“I-uh… My name is Dean. I was...”

“You are Dean?”

“Yes?”

“Balthazar told me you came in earlier to visit my brother.”

“Oh yeah,” Dean scratched his neck, suddenly feeling very nervous about the whole situation. 

What if she didn’t believe him? But Anna just nodded, then wiped over her face with the sleeve of her sweater. A very ugly sweater that was about three sizes too big for her and looked like it was only suited for winter in Siberia.

“I made her that sweater when I was 14. I cannot believe she still has it,” Dean heard Cas whisper next to him and, when Dean looked at him, he was smiling at Anna with tears in his eyes. 

“I’m still not sure I believe what you told him. No offense but it’s just.. he was always working. I’ve been trying to get him to go on a blind date for ages but he never had time.” 

A small smile appeared on her face now, her eyes focused on something in the distance like she was reliving a memory. But it was gone the next moment.

“Do you mind if we go look for a vending machine? I could use some coffee,“ she said and moved her head towards the other direction.

Dean just nodded and they started walking, Castiel just a few steps behind them. It was a bit unnerving to not be able to actually talk to Cas when he looked so completely miserable and even when Dean turned around to look at him, Cas didn’t pay him any attention and just kept staring at Anna.

“So, how did you two meet?”

“We-uh … I live in Cas’s apartment building.”

Anna nodded thoughtfully, fiddling with the sleeves of her sweater, but then suddenly stopped mid stride.

“Sorry, but … where were you the last few weeks?”

“I was abroad, for work.”

“Dean… why are you doing this?”

“What?”

“If you actually knew my brother, you’d know that he hates nicknames. And I don’t know if this gets you off or something but… I am going to have to say goodbye to Castiel tomorrow. So please, just stop,” her voice broke when she said her brother’s name, the rest of the sentence nothing but a pleading whisper. 

She wasn’t even looking at him anymore, just pulled her arms into the jumper and wrapped her arms around herself. Dean just stared at her, his heart breaking for the woman he had only just met. 

“Anna, I-uh…”

“Dean, don’t,” a quiet voice came from where Castiel, up to this point, had just silently been watching. But he wasn’t even looking at Dean, instead he reached out his hand and just sort of hovered it over Anna’s shoulder for a while until he dropped it again. And then he turned to Dean and he looked just as exhausted as his sister,

“Let’s go.”

He turned around and quickly walked towards the staircase where Dean watched him disappear through a door and then looked back at Anna who was silently crying into her hands now. 

“I’m really sorry, Anna,” he added quietly before turning around to follow Castiel.

* * * *

They drove back to the apartment in silence and while Dean kept glancing over to the passenger seat at Castiel, he had his face turned towards the side window where Dean couldn’t see it.

He tried to make sense of why Castiel had insisted on leaving before he could talk to Anna but he just didn’t get it. Of course it must have been horrible to see your own sister so devastated but if the alternative was to let Castiel die then.. he sighed audibly, only realising it after the fact, and looked back at the road ahead. But Castiel didn’t stir, just kept staring at the passing palm trees that were lining the street.

* * * *

As soon as the apartment door closed behind them, Dean couldn’t keep silent any longer. Castiel was just standing in the middle of the kitchen, his face unreadable, when Dean approached him slowly.

“What the hell, man?”

“Dean… “

“Why are you giving up?”

“I am not-”

Dean huffed a humourless laugh and drove his hand through his hair in exasperation, “Coulda fooled me.”

“What do you want me to do, Dean? Anna was talking to my dad on the phone. The man who left us with nothing fifteen years ago and I didn’t even know she was still in contact with him. She told him that I wasn’t getting any better and that if he wanted to say goodbye, now would be a good time. So even if you somehow convince her to give me more time, that is another couple of days or weeks before we have to accept that nothing we do will make this better. So why should we prolong the inevitable?”

“Prolong the-? What the everloving fuck! If you wanted to die why didn’t you just say so? I can go back to the hospital right now and pull the damn plug myself,” the harsh tone of his own voice was surprising to Dean, even though he was getting seriously riled up now. 

“Dean, I don’t want to die. But this is the undeniable truth,” Castiel responded quietly, his eyes searching Dean’s as he shrugged his shoulders.

“The hell it is. You listen to me, Castiel. We are gonna find a way to help you. I have lost too many people in my life. I am… Don’t make me lose you, too.”

Finally, Dean felt himself deflate, all the frustration and anger evaporating after he had spoken. And Castiel just stared at him, his eyes holding so many emotions that it knocked the breath out of Dean’s lungs. He wasn’t sure what exactly made him say those things but he didn’t regret them at all.

And then Castiel smiled at him, like they weren’t in the middle of an argument about his fucking life. No, that idiot was actually grinning at him in that goofy, gummy smile that made Dean’s heart skip a beat or two, not that he would ever admit that to anyone. 

“What’s so funny?”

“You just called me Castiel,” and there was a teasing glint in Castiel's eyes as he said it. 

“Yeah, well, your sister said you hate nicknames, so…,” Dean quickly looked away as he felt a blush rise up on his face all the way to his ears. 

“I do. But... I like it when you call me Cas.” 

That made Dean look back at him, and somehow the smile on Castiel's face got even wider. He looked so happy at that moment that Dean was going to make it his mission to keep him smiling like that for however long he was going to be able to do just that.

“Well, Cas… what now then?”

Castiel tilted his head to the side but then his eyes widened and he took a hesitant step towards Dean. 

“Let’s drive somewhere. In your car,” he exclaimed enthusiastically all of a sudden, his eyes practically glowing now.

“Okay, hot shot. And where do you wanna go?”

“Oh... I don’t know.”

Dean chuckled but when he noticed the frown on Cas’s face, he slowly shook his head and marched over to the door.

“I got an idea. Come on.”

* * * *

They got into the Impala and headed north on the Bayfront Expressway, and across the bay towards Coyote Hills Regional Park. Sam had taken him camping there a few weeks after Dean had moved in with his brother. Dean had been so out of it then that he had totally forgotten about the park and why Sam had insisted they go camping there - the same reason he was taking Castiel there now.

When they arrived at the small parking site, the sun was just starting to disappear behind the horizon, colouring the sky in orange and red hues, and was illuminating the small garden that stretched out in front of them in golden colours.

Dean got out of the car and leaned against the hood of the Impala, watching Castiel take in the sight as he moved around under the rose arches and alongside the various multi colored flowers that were in full bloom and emanating a faint smell. He sat down one of the benches that were lining the trail back to the bay as Dean joined him.

This was the garden he had designed and that was still one of the best things he had accomplished in his life. It wasn’t the biggest garden he had ever designed but it was work Dean was still proud of even after all these years. And coming back always reminded him of why he got into the job in the first place - to design something and then literally watch it come to life. 

“This place... it is magical,” Castiel whispered in awe, his eyes still roaming all over the garden.

Dean sat down next to Castiel on the bench, overlooking the glistening bay, Palo Alto in the west and even the lights of San Francisco up north. It was such a beautiful spot and Dean was glad he could share this with Castiel. 

“So, what do you think? Great view, huh?” Dean asked as he turned to Castiel.

“It is. But I like the garden the most, I think. It’s breathtaking.”

“Uh-thanks.” 

Castiel whipped his head around, a frown on his face, and Dean felt a blush creep up his neck.

“Yeah, I designed it a couple of years ago.”

Castiel turned around again and let his eyes roam over the garden, eventually landing back on Dean. And then Dean spent the next twenty minutes telling Castiel all about the garden and other projects he had worked on before. About the time he and his dad had built a treehouse for Sammy in their garden and how that made him fall in love with this job in the first place. Dean also told Castiel about his parents, how he still missed them every day, and how he was proudest of his little brother.

* * * *

An hour after sunset, they got in the car and drove back to the apartment where Dean made himself comfortable on the couch, his legs pulled up under him while he leaned against the backrest.

“Dean, can I ask you a favour?”

Castiel was still standing behind him as Dean turned around to look at him.

“Sure.”

“Can you design a garden for the rooftop?”

“Cas…,” Dean untangled his legs, slinging his arm over the backrest in the process, “I guess so? Might take me a while though. But sure,” Dean smiled as Castiel sat down across from him.

They stared at each other for a long moment, and Dean felt like time stopped then. And as he was looking at Castiel and his ridiculous blue eyes, the small crinkles around them as he smiled and his unruly bed hair, Dean realised that he didn’t want Castiel to leave.

Dean closed his eyes and dropped his head on the backrest, grumbling in frustration. He was so tired and just wanted to rest his eyes for a bit. It took all his willpower to open them again a few moments later. 

“You should sleep, Dean,” Castiel said quietly.

“M’good,” he mumbled and scooted down on the couch so he was half sitting half lying, his back comfortably resting against one of the cushions.

“It’s okay, Dean. I will be here when you wake up.”

“Gonna watch me sleep? That’s creepy, man,” Dean’s eyes closed of their own accord now, he just couldn’t fight it anymore. The last thing he heard before he fell asleep was a quiet chuckle from Castiel.

* * * *

The first thing Dean noticed when he woke up was the sunshine on his face. He slowly opened one eye and then quickly turned his head to the side to hide from the bright rays, groaning into the pillow. After another moment, he sat up and stretched his back and neck to work out the kinks that he always got from sleeping on the couch. It takes him another second to remember,

“Cas?”

“I am here, Dean.” 

Dean had to turn around to follow the voice, and found Castiel standing at one of the windows, the early morning sunlight engulfing him like an aura. He had his back towards him so Dean grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around himself as he slowly got up and shuffled over to where Castiel was standing.

“I was thinking… what if there was a purpose to all of this? Maybe I was sent back to help you?”

Castiel finally turned around but Dean just kept staring at him, not sure how to respond to his question. Of course, he was the only person who could see or hear Castiel but surely, that couldn’t be right. Why would anyone even care to save him?

“That’s awfully flattering but you didn’t even know me before.”

“But it would make sense, and at least that way I would not die in vain…”

“What, so you make someone realise that their life isn’t a complete waste of time and then you just... die? Do you realise how crappy that is? I mean, you can’t just come into someone’s life, turn it upside down and make them realise that they don’t want to lose you, Cas.”

“Dean, I-...”

Dean closed his eyes, trying to force away the sting of tears with little luck. And he really did not want to fight with Castiel, not when these might be the last hours of his life. He took a few deep breaths, rubbing over his face with his hands before he turned back around to face Castiel.

“Okay, what if we try talking to Balthazar? He believed me before and I’m sure…”

“It’s too late.”

“What?”

Cas dropped his gaze and turned back towards the windows, and when he spoke again his voice was completely blank and void of any emotions,

“They turned off the machines about an hour ago.”

For a long moment Dean wasn’t sure what those words meant, couldn’t wrap his head around what Castiel had just said. And then he felt his stomach drop and he felt panic arise, curling it’s way around his insides all the way up to his heart.

“What? How.. how do you know?”

“It feels different than before. It is like everything around me is slowly fading now.”

“Cas, I …”

Castiel finally turned to face him again, and the smile on his face was such a stark contrast to what Dean was feeling right now that it made him nauseous. 

“It’s okay,” Castiel said in what was probably meant to be a soothing tone but only made Dean panic even more. 

“What. No, it is not okay. You can’t just…”

Castiel stepped closer to him and suddenly there was barely even a foot between them. It felt like he was standing too close and too far away from him at the same time. 

“Close your eyes, Dean.” 

“No, Cas. Please,” and as Dean heard himself say those words he didn’t even recognise his own voice, so desperate and broken.

“It’s okay.”

Dean searched Castiel's eyes, pleading wordlessly with his own. 

“I don’t want you to go,” Dean whispered, not trusting his voice enough to speak loudly now.

“It’s okay, Dean.” 

Castiel smiled at him again and Dean almost believed him then, believed that it was okay. But how could it ever be okay when this was not fair to either of them? Because there Castiel was, this amazing, brilliant and kind man who had saved so many lives, who had saved Dean and helped him to finally be able to breathe again. And now Castiel was going to die. Because Dean Winchester wasn’t allowed to be happy, and apparently he now dragged other people with him into the hell hole that was his life, people who deserved so much more.

And Dean just kept looking at Castiel, kept staring into the other man’s eyes, not willing to let go of whatever connection they had going here even for a second. But then Castiel moved and suddenly there was bright sunlight in Dean’s face, too bright to keep his eyes open. And as he closed them for a moment, he felt the faintest of touches on his forehead, a featherlight movement that made him feel like his heart was breaking into a million pieces.

He turned his head to the side and shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand, to look back but a moment later he realised that he was alone.


	7. Chapter 7

The apartment was too quiet. The eerie silence seeping into every nook and every corner around him as Dean lay on the couch in the dark, staring up at the shadows on his ceiling.

Dean hadn’t moved for a long time after Castiel had vanished, feeling like if he did move he might miss… something. Eventually though, he had slowly walked over to the couch and just sat down, staring at the space in front of him. He had lost track of time completely, hadn’t even realised it had become dark until he heard his phone ring somewhere behind him. He ignored the next few calls on his phone as well.

At some point he found himself in front of his fridge, staring at its contents to see if he could use any of it to make himself some dinner. After five minutes, he realised he wasn’t even hungry and instead went to the bathroom to stare at his reflection in the mirror. Red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes were staring back at him, even though he hadn’t shed a single tear today. And that is when it hit him. Castiel was gone. Castiel was gone and this time he would not come back.

He curled his fingers around the edge of the sink and let out a slow shuddering breath. He turned the tap to let cold water run over his hands, to try easing an all too familiar tightness in his chest that pulled at him from the inside, and finally let himself feel what he had tried to hold back all day.

* * * *

Dean didn’t leave the apartment for three days after that.

On the fourth day, he ignored each and every one of Sam’s phone calls, only responding to one of Jess’ texts when she threatened to come by and kick his ass. He texted her not to worry and to give him some time, then started packing a bag. He was halfway out of the door before he decided against running away again.

In the early hours of the fifth day, he actually made it all the way to San Mateo before he pulled into the parking lot of a shopping center and screamed himself hoarse for five minutes, only stopping because his throat hurt too much to keep going. He drove back to the apartment after that, unpacked his bag and then drank himself to sleep.

After that it took him another two days to realise he should probably take a shower and maybe go out to buy some groceries. And as he stood in the cereal aisle of the big Target in Santa Clara, watching a woman trying to calm her crying baby while also deciding which one of the brightly coloured packages of sugary cereal she was going to buy, it hit him that the world hadn’t stopped. Everything went on like nothing had happened. 

But Castiel was still gone.

* * * *

Eventually, Sam managed to convince Dean to come down to San Jose for the day and have a barbeque with him and Jess in their garden. Dean didn’t feel like doing that at all but after two weeks he had run out of excuses. And so Dean was sitting in Sam and Jess’ yard, a burger on the plate in front of him and a determination to ignore any of the looks between his brother and Jess whenever Sam thought his big brother wasn’t paying attention.

But how the hell was Dean even going to begin explaining what was going on with him? He had told Sam about seeing a guy, so he would have to also tell him it had actually been a guy in a coma. A guy Dean had sort of really liked. But then the guy had died. And Dean lived unhappily ever after. 

He felt another wave of sadness and anger coming on, something he usually tried to avoid by not thinking about the whole thing too much, bottling it up and keeping himself busy. It probably wasn’t the best coping mechanism but he got by fine most of the time. And it was getting easier to ignore, but of course nothing ever worked in Dean’s favour.

They had finished their burgers and Dean was standing by the cooler, trying to open a bottle of beer and getting increasingly more frustrated when the cap just didn’t budge.

“Here, try this,” Jess said as she appeared next to him with a dish towel. Dean ignored the towel, grunted once and then tried to twist the cap again with more pressure.

A second later there was a sharp pain going through his right hand and the bottle smashed on the ground, the glass exploding all around them. He heard Jess yelp as she stumbled backwards and then Sam was there, as well, fussing over Jess who seemed to be okay apart from a small cut on her foot. Dean heard her mention the first aid kit and that really confused the hell out of him because she only had a small cut that wasn’t even bleeding that much. 

His eyes moved to the puddle at his feet where the beer was mixing with quite some blood, and he felt Jess’ hand on his back, steering him back to sit on one of the chairs. He noticed the pain in his right hand again after he had sat down, and when his eyes moved towards it he saw Jess slowly taking the top bit of the bottle that he must have broken off out of his hand. His hand that was bleeding quite heavily. Huh.

She had just wrapped the dish towel around it when Sam came back with the first aid kit, only to disappear back in the house after, mumbling something about doing the dishes. Dean closed his eyes as Jess started to clean and inspect the wound on his hand. It took five minutes before Jess declared that it wasn’t as bad as it looked and then proceeded to wrap his whole palm in a thick bandage. 

“You know, you can just talk to your brother about whatever it is that’s going on with you right now. Or talk to me,” Jess said as she attached the little metal clamp to fix the bandage in place.

“It’s nothing,” Dean replied with a shrug, pulling his hand away from her and averting his gaze.

But Jess was having none of it, instead taking his face into both her hands and turning his head back towards her, giving him a stern look that he knew better than to ignore.

“I’m sorry, Jess. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he whispered, the sting of tears getting stronger with every moment that Jess was looking at him like that. Like she was worried he might do something stupid.

“Oh, you scared me all right. We are both worried about you, Dean.”

Jess smiled at him warmly, her hand patting him on the thigh before she moved to close the first aid kit. And Dean decided it was time for him to head back home, promising Jess that he would be more careful now while Jess told him not to worry about Sam acting like a big baby, that he was probably just annoyed with Dean for being so reckless.

He promised to call her tomorrow and actually kept his promise for once. And after Dean had promised Sam not to break any glass again, especially near Jess, Sam had informed him that Dean owed him a beer. And for some reason Sam didn’t even ask the reason for his strange behaviour.

He should probably get a grip on himself sooner rather than later if he didn’t want Sam to ask any questions about what exactly was going on with him. The problem was just that he wasn’t quite sure how to do that. But maybe this was just another part of him now that was broken. Something he would just have to live with for the rest of his life, but that might someday get easier to deal with. 

So instead of running away, he decided it was time to make some changes. Getting back some kind of normalcy in his life was going to have to be the priority now, even if it was going to take him some time.

* * * *

That day, Dean unpacked his drawing supplies, laying everything out within reaching distance on the desk he had brought into the apartment for this exact reason, but so far had ignored. He even got out his old notebook, the one he hadn’t touched it in over two years, and that was filled with ideas and doodles from his time with Lisa, some pages even consisting of small sketches of Lisa or Ben. And as he was leafing through it, he realised it was much easier than he had expected. Instead of another panic-filled episode, he remembered the good things about his time in Kansas and his job. He had really missed drawing. And so when he reached the first empty page, he grabbed a pencil and started sketching.

As his hand moved across the paper in fluid motions, finding his rhythm again, straight lines turned into tree trunks which eventually turned into trees with various shades of green. After a couple of hours, he was looking at the drawing which showed a beautiful garden that he was going to bring to life on the rooftop of this apartment. He would turn it into something that Castiel might have liked. 

After that he spent a few hours drafting up a new CV and portfolio, which he sent out to a few local firms, albeit with little hope as he hadn’t actually worked for over a year. But maybe someone would give him a chance anyway.

An hour before sunset, he went up to the roof to take some measurements and decided to get started on this as soon as possible. As he was jotting down some numbers, he suddenly saw movement in his peripheral vision, followed by what sounded like the flutter of wings. But when he turned to look it was just the empty stone wall. Probably a bird he had scared off.

When it got too dark to work, he went back downstairs to take a shower, washing off all the grime and the dirt from kneeling and crawling around the rooftop. He was rubbing his hair dry with a towel when he looked into the mirror and saw someone standing behind him, their figure distorted by the fogged up glass.

Dean slowly raised his right arm to wipe the mirror, not taking his eyes off the figure behind him. He stopped breathing because suddenly Castiel was right there, looking at him with a warm smile. Dean didn’t move, his hand still hovering above the cold glass of the mirror. Either this was a dream and he was about to wake up, or he was really hallucinating this time.

“Hello, Dean.” 

It was that same gravelly voice that Dean had thought he would never hear again. The moments passed and Dean steeled himself to break eye contact to turn around and see if Castiel was really there, or if he would disappear like he was just a figment of Dean’s imagination after all.

But Castiel was still there, now standing in front of him, in the same blue cardigan and white button-up shirt, the black slacks and sensible shoes, and his unruly hair. There really was no good reason for Dean’s heart to suddenly start beating so fast.

The next thing he noticed was Castiel’s eyes slowly roaming over his whole body, only stopping when he realised Dean was watching him and then quickly averted his eyes to stare at the ceiling. Dean frowned but then realised what was happening, and then he felt his entire face break out in a deep blush.

“Oh, shit. Sorry,” he mumbled, clutching the small towel that he had just used to rub his hair with to his crotch.

“No, it’s- I am sorry for just… appearing like this. I don’t know what happened,” Castiel babbled, his eyes firmly focused on the ceiling, a faint blush on his cheeks. Dean absolutely did not think he looked adorable.

“Cas, wha-what are you doing here?”

“I am… still here,” Castiel said slowly, a frown appearing on his forehead as he dropped his gaze back to Dean. 

“Yeah, I can see that,” Dean replied with a laugh. 

And then they just stood there, smiling at each other like two complete idiots. And Dean couldn’t believe this was happening, his mind racing as he tried to figure out what was going on. But then he remembered his state of undress and made that his priority before he tried to figure out what was going on.

“Uh-I’ll be right back,” Dean turned sideways and then scurried past Castiel, quickly adding “clothes”,” as an explanation.

“Dean-”

“Just gimme a second.” 

Dean basically ran back to the bedroom, grabbed his sweatpants and a tshirt, forgoing underwear completely, because who even has time for underwear when Castiel was still here. He was back in the bathroom within a minute, 

“Okay, all don-…,” he drifted off when he realised he was talking to an empty room. He said Castiel's name twice but there was no reply.

* * * *

Dean spent the next hour browsing the internet to figure out if he was going mad and if hallucinations were a sign of grief. He even thought about calling Charlie, ask her to come over to see if she could still feel Castiel. But then doubts had invaded his thoughts and eventually he had convinced himself that Castiel couldn’t have been real. That missing him may have just triggered something in his subconscious. It was the only explanation that made sense.

Nevertheless, there was that small voice in the back of his mind that kept asking that one question over and over again - what if it really was Castiel? 

It had been almost three weeks since they had taken him off life support - was it possible that they had put him back on? Maybe something had changed and there was hope for recovery after all. And so Dean spent the night tossing and turning in his bed, unable to shut off the thoughts or stop thinking of possible reasons as to why Castiel could be back.

He gave up on sleep a couple of hours before the sun came up and instead made himself some coffee, settling down on the sofa to watch whatever was on at this time of day. Three cups later, he found himself with his phone in his hands, staring at the display where he had already entered the number that was now flashing on the screen, waiting to be dialed. It was just past 6am when he finally pressed the dial button and put the phone up to his ear, worrying his bottom lip as he waited for the call to connect.

“Stanford Health, how may I help?”

“Uh-hi. I’m looking for Balthazar Dupree. Neurology department, I think.”

“Yes. Please hold.”

There was quiet classical music playing in the background as a recorded voice told him that if this was an emergency he should hang up and dial 911. His knees were bouncing up and down now and, as he clutched the phone to his ear with one hand, he dug the nails of his other one into his thigh. He felt like he was about to go into cardiac arrest when the doctor finally picked up,

“Dr. Dupree speaking.”

And Dean just panicked. Anna had probably told Balthazar about him. What was he even thinking? You are an idiot, Winchester.

“Hello?” the doctor asked again, a sliver of annoyance creeping into his voice.

Dean was about to hang up again when he involuntarily blurted out, “Oh, yeah. Hi.” 

“Who is this?” Balthazar asked, his tone still a bit sour but that was probably reasonable considering Dean was a mumbling idiot.

“Oh, right. Sorry. It’s Dean. Winchester. Dean Winchester. I don’t know if you remember me…”

“Castiel's boyfriend. Of course, I remember you. How are you, Dean? I haven’t seen you around in a while.”

It sounded a bit accusatory to Dean, like Dean owed him an explanation as to why he hadn’t been coming to the hospital in a… wait.

“Is… is Cas alive?” Dean choked out, his whole body jerking forward and he almost let go of the phone in the process.

“Yes. You didn’t know?”

“No. No, I didn’t,” Dean admitted quietly, the thoughts racing in his head. Because Castiel wasn’t dead after all. Castiel was alive.

“Hmm. Dean, why don’t you come down here so we can talk?”

Dean took a deep breath and rubbed at his forehead with his free hand, massaging his temples before he spoke again, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Cas’s sister… last time I saw her, she wasn’t convinced I was his boyfriend.”

“And are you?” 

Dean could have sworn he heard the guy smirk through the phone.

“I-uh… something like that,” and Dean had to admit to himself that he wasn’t even sure it was a lie.

“I see,” Balthazar chuckled and then sighed before he continued, “Okay, Dean. I don’t really like doing this over the phone. But Castiel is doing better. Why don’t you come by my office later today so I can give you a proper update? Anna isn’t supposed to come in until later this afternoon, if you would rather avoid her.”

“Yeah, I can do that. Thanks.”

Dean hung up, the phone dropping down into his lap as he leaned back against the sofa. Castiel really was alive and Dean would see him again. Maybe for once the universe was not out to get him.

* * * *

Two hours later Dean found himself walking down the seemingly endless hallways of Stanford Hospital once again. The smile on his face was probably really dopey but he felt so much lighter than he had felt in a long time so he didn’t give a rat’s ass. Just as he was about to knock on Balthazar’s office door, someone yelled his name behind him, and when Dean turned around he saw Balthazar quickly scurrying towards him, a cup of coffee and a tablet in his hands. He moved past him, unlocked the door and motioned his hand for Dean to go inside.

“All right. Have a seat,” Balthazar pointed at the chair in front of his desk and then slumped down in his own leather chair, tapping away on his iPad.

“I just had a look at his latest test results and he is doing better every day. He hasn’t woken up yet but that should only be a matter of time now,” Balthazar finally looked up from his tablet and smiled reassuringly.

“Okay. So, is he going to be okay?”

 

“Well, it’s not quite as straightforward as that. Coma patients don’t just wake up like you would after a night’s sleep. It’s a gradual process that can take a couple of weeks before the patient is fully awake. And that doesn’t take into account any possible brain damage. We won’t know the extent of his brain injuries until he is back with us. We just have to take it one day at a time.”

“Okay, what’s the best and the worst case scenario here?”

“Well, best case scenario, he wakes up and only has a few impairments. Things we can treat and that will get better over time. Worst case, he wakes up but slips into a vegetative state. And then he will need care 24/7 for the rest of his life.”

Dean can see the pain in the doctor’s eyes and can feel the sting of tears in his own. He was suddenly overcome by a wave of nausea and had to lean his head into his hand.

“You okay, Dean?”

“I-uh. I don’t know,” Dean whispered, his voice steadier that he would have expected but he could feel his chest tighten up, making it hard to breathe.

“Okay, Dean, can you lean down and put your head between your knees for me?”

He looked up at the doctor who had gotten up from his own chair and was now standing next to him, his hand on Dean’s shoulder. It was getting harder to breathe and concentrate so he just gave in to the slight pressure of the doctor’s hand and bent forward.

Dean focused on his breathing for a few minutes and, when he felt better, leaned back up in the chair and gave Balthazar a pained smile, “Sorry about that.”

“You feeling better?”

Balthazar, who had walked over to a small fridge in the corner of the room, got out a bottle of water and handed it to Dean before he leaned against the table, watching Dean with careful eyes.

“I know this all sounds scary but we are very hopeful. And Castiel has already surprised us when he pulled through even though all the odds were against him.”

Dean took a few gulps of the water and nodded, his breathing finally back to normal. 

“Why don’t we go downstairs. I can probably sneak you in for a few minutes so you can say hi to him.”

Dean looked up at the doctor then, frowning, “Why are you doing this?”

“Something tells me that you having reacted like you just did means that you actually do care about Castiel. And who am I to stand in the way of love?”

“We are not…, “ but Dean stopped himself and then just nodded with a small smile on his lips.

“I know it can be difficult being in a relationship with someone who works so much. But I am really happy to see he found someone who is willing to stick around.”

Dean almost laughed at Balthazar then. This whole situation was just so bizarre. And yet Dean couldn’t help but be happy about it, and nothing would make Dean happier right now than Castiel waking up and being able to work again. Well, that and being able to talk to him again.

* * * *

They made their way down to the neurosurgery ward, Dean trotting after Balthazar, who was tapping away on his phone. When they reached Castiel's room, Balthazar pocketed his phone and told Dean he could have ten minutes with his boyfriend before one of the nurses would do check-ups. Dean felt himself blush and quickly dodged into the room and out of sight. He wasn’t even sure why he was blushing, since this was all pretend and it wasn’t like he was going to kiss the guy. But it was a bit strange since Castiel didn’t really need his help anymore and he was just here for his own sake. To make sure Castiel really was okay.

As the door closed behind him, he took a moment to prepare himself. For some reason he felt really nervous now, even though it was just him and Castiel, and Castiel was still in a unconscious. So he let out a long breath and then slowly walked into the sundrenched room.

He stopped at the foot of the bed, looking down at Castiel's unconscious body. He looked better than last time, much less pale and he was no longer connected to a ventilator, instead his chest was rising and falling all by itself. The small plastic tube that ran up his chest and under his nose was the only thing that gave away that Castiel wasn’t just sleeping. There was a heartrate monitor setup on the right side of the bed but it had been muted. Dean watched the waves on the monitor for a few moments, they seemed pretty regular to him.

Eventually, he sat down on the chair that was situated right next to the bed, his eyes firmly trained on Castiel's hand. There was a tube pumping clear fluid into his body, covered by white dressing. His own hands were a bit clammy so he rubbed them up and down his thighs. He wanted to touch Castiel but he had this absolute absurd thought that Castiel would just disappear if he tried. Or that he might just wake up and realise it was all a nightmare.

But then he lifted his right hand anyway and slowly wrapped his fingers around Castiel's, careful not to squeeze the tube. And his hand was so warm. This wasn’t the first time Dean had touched Castiel's hand but somehow this time it was almost overwhelming. Dean let out a shaky breath and then looked from their joined hands to Castiel's face.

“Heya, Cas,” it was barely a whisper but it felt like it was drowning out all the background noise, “I’m so glad you’re still here, man. But… you need to wake up now, okay? Can you do that for me?”

At first he thought he imagined the slight twitch but then it happened again and he quickly looked down at Castiel's arm. And his hand, it was twitching. Only slightly, but there was definitely movement coming from Castiel.

He squeezed Castiel's hand again and then it almost felt like he was actually squeezing back. And when Dean looked back at Castiel's face, he almost choked on his own breath because Castiel's eyes were open. Not completely, but it looked like he was slowly drifting out of sleep on a lazy Sunday morning.

Dean got up slowly and leaned closer, trying to catch Castiel's eyes which were just sort of staring ahead, unfocused and not moving. 

“Cas?” his voice broke and he felt tears in his eyes. He wanted to reach out and touch Castiel's face but suddenly the door behind him opened and made him jump back.

The back of his legs hit the chair and pushed it back a bit, making a horrible scratching sound on the linoleum floor.

“What… What are you doing here?!”

Of course, it was Anna. Anna, who looked so much better than the last time he had seen her. She was carrying a bouquet of sunflowers and slowly placed it on the small table across from where Dean was still half leaning back against the chair.

“Anna, I-uh … Cas. He just…”

“You know what, I don’t even care. I’m just going to call security,” she turned on her heels and was about to pull open the door when Dean shook himself out of his stupor and yelled, “Anna, Cas just opened his eyes.”

Letting go of the door handle, Anna slowly turned around to face Dean, her eyes wide and moving between Dean and her brother.

“What?”

“I was just… I was saying hello to Cas and…,” he drifted off when he realised he was still clasping Castiel's hand that had now gone limp again. He slowly put it back down on the bed and then turned back to Anna, “He squeezed my hand and then opened his eyes for a few moments.”

“I… are you sure?”, Anna inquired with a quiet whisper and then made her way back to the bed, her eyes completely focused on Castiel.

“Yes. Yes, absolutely,” he huffed a nervous laugh and looked back at Castiel who at that moment decided to open his eyes up once again, only once this time before closing them again but clearly visible to both Anna and Dean.

Anna put her hand on Castiel's cheek and stroked it softly, her voice faintly whispering words Dean couldn’t quite make out. He stepped away from the bed to give her some privacy, moving towards the door.

“I’m gonna get the doctor,” he said even though he was sure Anna didn’t really listen to him anymore.

* * * *

Fifteen minutes later he was sitting on one of the chairs outside Castiel's room. Only he wasn’t so much sitting on them as he was trying to will himself to not get up and pace around the hallway again. Balthazar was inside the room with another, younger doctor and a nurse checking up on Castiel's condition. And while Dean was trying not to stare a hole into the door, Anna was shuffling up and down the hallway between Castiel's room and the next one over. It was starting to drive Dean crazy but he figured he’d better keep his mouth shut. Every few minutes she walked past Dean, throwing him nervous glances and every single time Dean expected her to say something but then she just turned around and marched off in the other direction.

After another five excruciating minutes, the door finally opened and while Anna almost jumped at Balthazar, Dean stood back, with his gaze steady on the doctor.

“Castiel is doing okay. We need to do a few more tests but I think he is starting to wake up.”

At that Anna threw her arms around the doctor’s neck and hugged him tight for several long moments. Then she ran back inside the room while Balthazar turned to Dean, motioning him to walk the other way. And Dean figured it was probably best to leave Anna and Castiel alone for the time being. Even if Castiel was doing better, he didn’t know if Anna was still planning on calling the cops on him. So he followed Balthazar down the hall instead.

“I think you should go now, Dean,” when Dean opened his mouth to reply Balthazar held up his hands and continued with a smile, “I’m gonna go talk to Anna and see if she is more inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt now that Castiel is doing better. Okay?”

Dean nodded and then sighed, “But Cas is waking up, yeah?”

“He still has a long road ahead of him but he is well on his way now.”

“Can you keep me updated if anything happens?”

Balthazar sighed but then nodded. Dean mumbled a thank you and then turned to leave. And when he got back to his car, he suddenly felt all the energy drain out of him and he had to lean against the Impala to not just slump down on the ground. He laid his head onto his arms and took a few deep breaths.

Castiel was going to wake up. And maybe Dean would get to talk to Castiel and be able to shake his hand or hug him. Or maybe kiss the fucking daylights out of him. Oh.

It wasn’t a surprising thought. It was really quite obvious now that he thought about it. Dean had fallen head over heels for the guy with his pressed shirt and his blue cardigan and his insanely blue eyes. He was totally gone on the guy.


	8. Chapter 8

When he got home a bit later, he just stood in the middle of the living room for a few minutes, his eyes closed and his shoulders dropped down. His thoughts kept drifting back to the moment when Castiel had opened his eyes. He hadn’t even looked at Dean, had just sort of stared at the ceiling with unfocused eyes, and yet his eyes had been one of the most beautiful things Dean had ever seen. Man, this whole thing was turning him into a sap.

He probably just needed a distraction. Maybe he should go upstairs and work on the garden for the rest of the day, get it ready for when Castiel would be well enough to come and see it for himself.

“Dean?”

Dean almost gave himself whiplash when he turned his head towards that gravelly voice. His heart sped up again which was almost like a pavlovian reflex now whenever he heard Castiel's voice. 

And there he was. With his stupid unruly hair, his stupid blue eyes and that stupid smile. All of which were things that Dean couldn’t get enough of anymore. Yep, Winchester, you are totally gone on the guy.

“Hiya, stranger,” Dean didn’t move towards Castiel, afraid that he would just have to force himself not to try and touch him, which was of course still not possible.

“I am… I feel strange, Dean. I don’t know what’s happening. I keep blacking out and then I am in a dark room and there are voices.”

Dean could feel the corners of his mouth pull up, unable to hide his smile any longer, he just let it happen and a moment later he was downright beaming at the guy.

“Dude, you are waking up,” finally Dean stepped closer to him and just continued,

“I talked to Balthazar earlier. I saw you, your body, I mean. And I held your-your hand and you moved it. And then you opened your eyes,” Dean suddenly felt a blush heat up his face and quickly looked down at his feet. Was he seriously embarrassed right now because he had held Castiel's hand?

“That was you,” Castiel raised his hand and turned it around so that his palm was now facing upwards, a small smile playing on his lips. 

Dean’s gaze slowly drifted back up to Castiel's hand as he kept staring at it. 

“You, you felt that?”

“Yes. It was dark around me but it felt like someone was touching my left hand and then I saw shadows moving,” Castiel let his hand drop down again and then looked at Dean.

“So… what now? I mean, you opened your eyes. Balthazar said that’s a very good sign.”

“Yes. It will just take a while for me to fully regain consciousness, I think.”

“Okay, cool. I can wait. No problemo. I mean, what’s a bit more waiting, huh?”

And then Dean actually winked at him. He also mentally slapped himself for being such a weirdo. Looking at him now you could never tell that normally Dean was very good at flirting. But Castiel didn’t acknowledge it, instead just gave him another one of those gummy smiles and, for some reason, that just made Dean tumble even further down the rabbit hole.

“So, I was thinking... maybe... we could… once you feel better, I mean. Maybe I could take you out. If you want?”

“You want to take me out?”

It was only then that Dean realised what he had said and felt his eyes widen in horror. What if Castiel didn’t want to go out with him? The guy would probably be happy to never see Dean again after this whole ordeal of almost dying. He needed to undo the damage right the fuck now.

Then he realised he hadn’t said anything for a while and Castiel was just looking at him with raised eyebrows like he was waiting for him to say something. Oh, right. 

“I-uh… out to the park, I mean. The garden. So you can smell the flowers. Appreciate the whole experience, you know,” he laughed nervously, raising his hand to rub at his neck. He really needed to calm down. And breathe. But his eyes were drifting around the room on their own accord now, looking everywhere but at Castiel.

“I would like that very much, Dean.”

And when Dean’s gaze snapped back to him, he saw the fond expression on the other man’s face and it nearly took Dean’s breath away. Then he proceeded to roll his eyes at himself in his mind. Time to change the topic, he thought and took a deep breath before he finally spoke again,

“So, how long d’you think it’ll take you to wake up?”

“Oh, that is difficult to predict. Coma patients usually wake up for a few minutes every day and that time increases over the weeks until they have regained full consciousness. That is what Balthazar told my sister anyway.” 

“But once you wake up you're gonna be okay, right?”

“That really depends on how damaged my brain is.”

“So what you’re saying is that we won’t know for sure for another few weeks?”

He sounded like a petulant child now but it was just so frustrating, not being able to do anything. He had never been good at waiting around. He guessed that this must be so much worse for Castiel, though. Because right now he was fine, he had no physical or mental disabilities and that may very well change once he woke up. And looking at Castiel, Dean could see that Castiel was afraid of the same thing. That this could very well be Castiel's last chance to experience life as himself.

Castiel had his back turned to him now, and then suddenly strode over to the desk in the corner only stopping when he was standing right in front of it, his head perched over the drawings Dean had left there earlier.

“Dean, these… did you draw these?”

Castiel looked up at him with wide eyes and Dean hesitantly walked over to him, his hands now buried deep in the pockets of his jeans. 

“Uh, yeah. Just a few ideas.”

Castiel looked back at the desk and it was only then that Dean realised which one had caught Castiel's attention.

“Yeah, that one. You recognise it?”

Castiel let out a huff and leaned down closer to the drawing, his eyes roaming across all the lines and colours Dean had added over the course of the last few days, adding some things and trying to make it the best thing he had ever done.

“I’ve been… I thought it might be cool to keep it small, but with lots of flowers and a vine overgrown arch,” he pointed to the arch he had drawn right in the middle of the garden, and then quickly added, “If you want, of course. I haven’t done much yet so I can still….” 

He stopped when Castiel suddenly lifted his head and looked right at him, his face only a few inches away from Dean's own.

“Dean. It is beautiful. I would be honored to have you make this garden for the roof.”

Dean was completely mesmerized by Castiel's eyes at that moment that he forgot how to breathe for a few seconds. When he managed to kick his brain back into action he whispered, “I’ll consider myself hired then.”

And Castiel, that bastard, just smiled at him, completely at ease like he wasn’t practically a ghost and in a coma right now and didn’t know if he was going to be fine once he woke up. He… he looked happy. And Dean was so proud for having managed to put that smile on his face that he completely ignored the fact that this was another one of those chick flick moments. Maybe he just needed to accept that there was nothing he could do about Castiel turning him into a complete sap. Funny thing was, he didn’t even mind it one bit.

* * * *

Castiel had disappeared a short while after that. But not before he had made Dean promise that he was going to finish that garden, no matter what. Of course, they both knew there was a chance that Castiel might never see it in person but Dean had told him he would figure out a way, even if he had to carry him on his shoulders all the way here. Castiel had laughed out loud when Dean had said that, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and Dean had fallen even more for him. And he was still reeling from the whole encounter when he got back to the apartment later that day with more things for the garden, including some timber and a few vine plants for the arch he was going to build.

He was in the middle of assembling the first half of the arch, whistling along to the song that was currently playing on the small radio he had brought up here a few days ago, when his phone started to vibrate in his pocket. After wiping off his hands on his jeans, he fished it out and sat down on the yet to be assembled beams of wood.

It was a text from Balthazar and for a moment Dean panicked because he had just seen the guy this morning, but then he probably wouldn’t send a text if it were anything important. He wiped his free hand over his face and took a deep breath before opening the message.

_Talked to Anna and she agreed that she may have overreacted. I suggested we sit down on Friday and talk about it again. You up for that? - Balthazar_

Dean typed a quick reply telling Balthazar that he would be there, so they agreed to meet at the coffee place down the road at noon on Friday. Dean went back to work on the arch, even though he couldn't really stop thinking about what would happen on Friday after that.

He spent the next two days working on the garden but was also getting himself riled up over how he could convince Anna that Castiel and he had been in a relationship before the accident. He kept thinking how it would be really good for Castiel to turn up again before Friday so they could figure this out together. He probably didn’t need to talk to Castiel to figure this out but at this point it would at least calm his nerves a bit. Of course, there was still the whole issue of Dean not knowing if Castiel even reciprocated this. The guy was probably just glad he had found someone who he could talk to after weeks of not being seen or heard by anyone. And just because Dean had agreed to help him didn’t mean that Castiel wanted to spend more time with Dean than was absolutely necessary. And so he had thrown himself into work on the garden and by the time Friday came along, he had made a lot of progress on the roof. 

He was just coming back downstairs after watering some of the plants in the garden because they hadn’t seen any rain in days, when he almost ran into Castiel who was standing right at the end of the staircase with his arms crossed over his chest and a serious look on his face.

“Cas,” Dean greeted him with a smile, stopping on the last step.

“So, you are seeing Anna?”

“I am. I was just… wait, how do you know?”

“Anna told me.”

“She…. you talked to her?”

“She talked to me. I couldn’t answer. But I heard her when I opened my eyes earlier,” there was a small smile on Castiel's face now, lighting up his features.

“Oh, that’s good. Right?”

“I think so,” Castiel relaxed a bit, his eyes still watching Dean like he was expecting him to do something. 

“I’m meeting her in a couple of hours, so I got some time. Maybe you could tell me a bit more about yourself so that I can convince her I actually know you.” 

Something crossed Castiel's face then and Dean wasn’t quite sure what it was but it was gone the next moment, replaced by a small smile.

“I mean, if that’s all right with you.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” a frown appeared on Castiel’s forehead.

“Well, it’s just, I don’t really need to meet with Anna anymore.”

“But how will you visit me?”

Dean felt like a weight was lifted off his shoulders then and smiled at Castiel, “Okay, cool.”

Castiel nodded at him and then they sat down on the couch across from each other, their bent up legs only a few inches apart and Dean asked him about himself, what he remembered - his favourite food, music and, of course, film. And while Castiel didn’t remember much he did remember that he had never seen Star Wars, and that was just all kinds of wrong if you asked Dean. Castiel had smiled at him when Dean had started his enthusiastic monologue about why it was important that he watch the films and then decided to start watching the first film right there and then.

About half an hour into the film Dean gave up forcing himself to concentrate on the movie. He was by no means bored with it, not after having seen it more than was probably healthy. But watching Castiel watch it was just so much more interesting. Because Castiel, he was making the best faces - there was the occasional frown, a few smiles he had tried to suppress and the head tilting, of course. And Dean was just so happy that Castiel was still here, seemingly engrossed in what he considered was one of the best movies ever made. He just couldn’t help that his gaze kept drifting towards Castiel, and despite trying to justify that with checking that Castiel was still here, he couldn’t not acknowledge the sight made him happy.

“Dean?”

“Hmm?”

Dean shook himself out of his thoughts and smiled at Castiel but when he saw the fond expression on Castiel's face, he felt like his heart was skipping beats it really should not skip. And Dean just couldn’t wrap his head around this at all. 

“Thank you.”

“Huh?” Dean asked intelligently and then wondered when his brain would decide to join the conversation.

“I just-... if I end up waking up and I can not thank you then, I wanted to do that now. Thank you for your companionship.”

“Oh no, not another goodbye speech. Cas, you’re gonna be fine.”

“Dean-”

“No. We’re not talking about this again. You said yourself that we cannot be sure of what the outcome will be until you have fully regained consciousness. Let’s stick to what’s happening right now. Which is one of the best films you will ever see. So, watch the film, Cas,” with that Dean turned back towards the television and forced himself to not look back at Castiel. And he managed to do just that for about two minutes before he had convinced himself he had to at least occasionally check that Castiel was still there.

“Dean, stop looking at me. It’s distracting,” Castiel said without looking away from the screen.

“Your face is distracting,” Dean mumbled and it took him a few seconds and Castiel raising his eyebrows at him to realise what he had said. He felt his face heat up instantly but when Castiel's eyes met his he couldn’t seem to look away. Because there was a twinkle in Cas’s eyes that suddenly made him feel brave.

So he quickly grabbed the remote and hit the pause button, just as Luke and Obi-Wan were about to see Princess Leia’s message. 

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course, Dean,” Castiel frowned slightly, the creases on his forehead deepening more and more.

“Once you feel better, after you wake up completely, I mean. Do you-... Do you maybe wanna go grab some burgers and maybe watch the rest of these films? Together, with me, maybe?” Dean sputtered, unable to hold back the words that were just rolling off his tongue without his permission.

The frown on Castiel's face changed into surprise, and then he tilted his head slightly, and Dean was so thankful that he was currently sitting down because his knees suddenly felt too weak to function.

“Do you mean like on a date?”

“Uh. Yeah?” he replied weakly and the look on Castiel's face didn’t change, not giving him any indication as to what the guy was thinking at all. 

“Only if you want. If you don’t, that is also cool. No worries. We can just-”

“Dean,” Castiel said softly and the look on the guy’s face made Dean’s stomach drop a million miles an hour. What was he even thinking? Castiel was a successful doctor, why would he wanna go out with a guy who had nothing to his name and couldn’t even keep himself happy? So, instead of having to listen to whatever excuse Castiel would come up with, he quickly got up from the couch, knocking his shin against the coffee table while trying to get as far away from the situation as possible.

“Ah, shit,” he mumbled and then quickly limped over to the kitchen.

“No, wait. Dean, I would like to-”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m good. I’m golden.”

“Dammit, Dean!”

There was something in those two words and the lower than usual tone that made Dean stop dead in his tracks halfway between the couch and the kitchen. It took him a few moments and a few long breaths to work up enough courage to turn around and face Castiel, but when he finally did he was alone in the apartment again. Of course. 

Dean almost laughed out loud when he suddenly thought of how often he had wished the earth would just swallow him up in awkward situations. He hoped the universe had gotten a good laugh out of this at least.


	9. Chapter 9

Dean found himself sitting in the coffee shop down the street from the hospital a couple of hours later, his mind still reeling from the monumental fuck up he had committed by asking Castiel out and effectively ruining any hopes to have a friendship with the guy. Maybe he should have cancelled on Anna and Balthazar, forgotten all about pretending to be Castiel's boyfriend when it didn’t even matter anymore, anyway.

He was just about to grab his jacket when someone called his name from the other side of the room. Dean looked up and he saw Balthazar smiling at him, and Anna with her arms crossed in front of her chest. They talked quietly for a few moments and as Balthazar went to the counter, Anna slowly walked over to him, her face almost impassive.

“Hey Anna, thank you for coming,” Dean got up from his chair and gestured for Anna to sit down. She turned around to see where Balthazar was and then sighed and sat down with Dean.

“I wanted to apologize for... “

“No. Don’t worry about it. You love your brother, I get that. I would have done the same thing for my little brother,” and as Dean smiled, her features relaxed a bit and she nodded.

“So, how is he?” Dean asked carefully, wrapping his hand around his still warm cup of coffee.

“Oh, he is doing so great. He was awake for almost half an hour yesterday and even nodded when I asked him if he knew who I was,” Anna said with tears in her eyes but wiping them away quickly and laughing, “I’m sorry.”

“No. That is good. That he recognizes you, I mean.”

“Yeah. It’s great.” 

They smiled at each other and Dean felt so much lighter already. Because Castiel was really getting better and next time he would talk to Castiel, he would rub that in his pessimistic face. If Castiel still wanted to talk to him, that is.

“I was going to check in on Castiel after this, would you like to come, Dean?”

Dean raised his eyebrows in surprise at the suggestion but then quickly nodded, “Yes, that’d be great.”

“Why don’t we go over there now and you can tell me a bit more about how you two met?” Anna got up from her chair, the smug smile of a big sister now on her face like she was about to ask him all kinds of inappropriate questions. Which, to be fair, she probably was. It’s what he would do, and what he had done with Jess when he had met his brother’s girlfriend the first time.

Either way, he was going to see Castiel again and that thought made him so nervous all of a sudden that one of his legs got tangled between the table and another chair. He only just avoided face-planting into another table by gripping the backrest of a chair with his hands and in the process twisting his wrist to a very uncomfortable angle.

Hissing through his teeth, he let go of the chair and rubbed at his wrist to ease the pain.

“Easy there, Winchester. You don’t wanna end up at the hospital as a patient now, do you?” Balthazar quipped as he joined Dean and Anna carrying two takeaway cups, one of which he then handed Anna.

Dean huffed a laugh and then turned his wrist a few times to assess it but the pain was already receding. 

“Your name is Winchester?”

Dean’s eyes fell on Anna again, the smile that had been on her face just moments ago was nothing but a memory now. Her features were almost impassive, a blank look that made Dean feel very uneasy. And then he realised what had happened.

“Anna, please let me expl-,” Dean started but then Anna just turned around and stalked off. But just before she walked out of the door she turned around and, in what must have been the iciest voice he had ever heard, said, “If I ever see you again, I will call the cops on you.”

And then she was gone. Dean closed his eyes and dropped back down on his chair, his shoulders slumped. 

“What just happened?”

Dean looked up at the doctor who was still standing in the same spot, coffee in his hands and an utterly perplexed expression on his face.

“Long story,” Dean shrugged and let out a long sigh. A long story that ultimately meant that he probably wouldn’t see Castiel again, not until Castiel could confirm who Dean was.

Balthazar then told him he needed to check in on Anna but that he would get back to him later. But Dean just nodded at him absentmindedly, because this felt an awful lot like the end of this little adventure was staring him right in the face.

It was almost hilarious how he always fucked up everything he cared about. His parents only died because Dean hadn’t been able to drive his mum to work that day like he usually did, so instead his dad had taken her. And then Lisa had left him because he hadn’t been able to make her happy. And now he had screwed this up because he hadn’t been able to come up with a convincing story, and because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut and had to ask Castiel out on a date.

* * * *

When Dean got back to the apartment after driving around for a while to clear his head, he just stood there, leaning against the door and looking at the living room, the kitchen and the door that lead upstairs to the roof.

In hindsight, he felt really stupid for not having thought of Anna finding out that he was the guy who was renting her brother’s apartment. Of course, she would think it weird for some guy she had never met to claim he was her brother’s boyfriend, who then turned out to be the tenant of her brother’s apartment like a crazy stalker. He probably would have thought the same thing were the situations reversed.

Maybe he should do the right thing for once and just move out before she could sic the cops on him and Cas would probably be glad to never see him again anyway after that whole date thing Dean had pulled. So he grabbed a few of the boxes that were still lying around the hallway and started throwing all his crap in there. 

He called Sam an hour later, asking if he could crash on their couch again for a bit until he found a new place. And bless his brother because even after what had happened last time he was there, the guy didn’t even ask why, just told him to come over whenever and that he was welcome to stay for as long as he needed.

Which is why he was packing up the last couple of boxes in the kitchen two days later, about to drive the last few things over to storage until he found a new place. While he waited for Sam to pick him up with the rental van, he checked the apartment one more time to see if he had left anything behind.

Dean didn’t linger anywhere, afraid that if he looked at something too closely, he was going to think of Castiel again and that was the last thing he needed right now. It was hard enough as it is, to leave the only thing that was still connecting him to Castiel now. But there was just nothing else he could do anyway. The garden was not quite done but the rest Castiel could do by himself once he felt better.

Suddenly, the phone rang in the living room, and Dean just stared at it for a moment, panic rising in his chest that Anna was about to yell at him. But then he pulled himself together and went to pick it up,

“Hello.”

“Hello, is this Dean Winchester?”

“Yes.”

“Hello, Mr Winchester. This is Gordon Hewitt from Sustainable Landscaping in Palo Alto. I just had a chance to look at your application and I am very impressed with your portfolio. I was wondering if you would be interested in coming over here at some point this week so we can have a chat?”

“An interview?”

Dean heard the man laugh out loud at the other end.

“As I said, I am very impressed with your work. I would give you the job on the spot but I feel like we need to talk about the specifics first,” Dean could still hear the smile in the guy’s voice and found himself smiling right back.

“Oh. Okay, wow. That is… wow. Thank you very much.”

“I am very excited to meet you, Dean. Can you come in tomorrow afternoon, around 3?”

“Sure. Absolutely. I’ll be there.”

“Great. I am looking forward to meeting you.”

“Yes. Me, too.”

Dean pressed the red button to hang up, put the phone back into its station and then let out a long breath. Well, at least he might have a job now.

“Dean?”

It took his brain a second to catch up but when he finally turned towards the familiar voice, he was able to get his heart to work again, as well.

“God, Cas. Don’t do that.”

“Apologies,” Castiel stated absentmindedly and then his brows pulled together and a worried expression fell over his face. And then Dean realised that the guy’s eyes were roaming over the whole apartment, taking in the empty shelves and a couple of boxes in the kitchen. 

“I’m moving back in with Sammy,” Dean scratched the back of his neck, unable to look at Castiel.

“You are leaving,” Castiel's voice was so quiet, a whisper and it made Dean finally look up. 

And the look on the other man’s face was like a punch to the gut because he looked downright miserable, his eyes firmly trained on the boxes in the kitchen.

“Yes, but... I have to,” he lifted his hand as if on autopilot, only to drop it again when Castiel finally looked back at him, a frown on his face.

“Your sister knows that I live in your apartment and thinks I’m a crazy stalker. So I thought it’d be best to get out before she calls the cops on my ass.”

It was almost funny to watch how Castiel went from miserable to confused and then to trying to suppress a smile and not quite managing.

“Oh, you think that’s funny?” Dean tried to sound pissed off but seeing Castiel grin like that made it really hard for him not to laugh.

“No, of- of course not,” he quickly said, his eyes widening, and then continued with a quiet voice, “I just thought... you might have had enough of dealing with this. With me,” the last two words were hushed and Castiel looked like he was feigning nonchalance but Dean was having none of it. Because Castiel's body language practically screamed the opposite. Maybe he had been wrong all along?

“Cas, I wouldn’t just bail on you. Just figured what with you getting better, there wasn’t much I could do anyway. And after last time..,” he trailed off, searching Castiel's eyes for any indication if he should just let this go or if there was indeed something between them. But Castiel just stared at him, his face looking like he was fighting an internal battle with himself.

“Okay, listen, Cas. I’m sorry I made you feel uncomfortable, man. Just forget about-”

“No,” Castiel suddenly exclaimed, his voice clear and really rather loud. He started shaking his head and then he stepped closer to Dean.

Dean was about to say something else but every thought he had at that moment went right out of the window because of the way Castiel was looking at him, his blue eyes almost shining and a gentle smile on his lips that made Dean’s knees go weak again.

“I was going to answer you last time but you went off ranting like a… ranter. So may I answer your question now, Dean?”

Apparently, Dean had also forgotten how to breathe so he just nodded at Castiel, unable to do anything else because how could he when Castiel was just staring at him like that?

“Very well. Because yes, I would very much like to go out on a date with you,” and then a huge, gummy smile broke out on his face, lighting up his features and making his eyes almost shine. And Dean couldn’t help but huff a laugh and it felt like someone had taken a huge weight off his shoulders.

“Yeah?” he finally breathed out, never breaking eye-contact with Castiel.

“Yes,” Castiel responded determinedly. And they were so close now that Dean could have sworn he felt Castiel's breath on his face. 

Here they were, mere inches apart and yet so far away from each other. Under normal circumstances, it would’ve been the easiest thing to lean forward and press his lips to Castiel's.

“I would really like to kiss you right now,” Castiel whispered as his eyes trailed down to Dean’s lips.

Dean let out a sound that was totally not a whimper and then quickly closed his eyes to get a grip on himself.

“Okay. Let’s…,“ Dean said too quickly, taking a step back until his thighs bumped against the back of the couch. It took all his remaining strength to not just slide down on the floor at that moment. And Castiel, that complete dork was just standing there, with a huge grin on his face. And Dean would totally make a comment about that if his brain would just start cooperating again.

So instead, he took a few deep breaths to steady his heartbeat and will his body to calm down. Now there was an anecdote for the grandkids - turned on by a ghost. 

“So, uh…,” he cleared his throat when he heard his own raspy voice, “how’s the waking up going then? Anna mentioned you reacted to something she said?”

“Yes. I understand what she says and I seem to be able to respond by nodding. I think I heard Balthazar saying they expect me to be fully conscious within the next two weeks,” Castiel smile got a bit smaller now but it was no less astounding a thing to see for Dean.

“That’s great. And maybe, once you can talk to Anna… you-uh, you could tell her that I am not a crazy stalker? Then I could come visit you?”

That made Castiel laugh out loud and Dean decided right then and there that he never wanted to go a day without hearing that sound again if he could help it. And then his heart did that weird little jump again, but unlike those episodes he had had before, this now felt like something he could get used to.

And for some reason Castiel seemed to be willing to let Dean do just that. For a moment he thought that should scare him, really. But it didn’t. It was just so much less scary than the thought of losing Castiel forever. And he just couldn’t imagine not having Castiel around anymore, not after everything that had happened in the last few weeks.

“Dean?”

“Yes,” Dean had drifted back towards Castiel without noticing it at first, and was now standing just a couple of feet away again.

“Something is happening. I feel strange.”

“What? What do you mean?” and it was like a switch had been flipped and everything was now in panic mode, including himself.

“I am not sure. I think I am being pulled back to my body.”

“But that’s good. Like you’re reconnecting, yeah?”

Castiel was about to say something when he suddenly started to actually flicker. It wasn’t quite as horrifying as Dean had seen happen a million times in horror movies but it was still unsettling. Like his eyes were not working properly.

“If I am going back then I won’t be able to come back here again, Dean.”

“Hey, but then you can focus on getting better. Which is the main thing, okay?”

Castiel just nodded at him, his eyes so wide in panic and then he flickered again, more than before.

“I will talk to Anna as soon as I can and then you can come and visit me,” it sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than Dean. But Dean smiled at him reassuringly anyway, stepping right in front of Castiel to try and distract him.

“Balthazar has my phone number and I will be waiting for it to ring, you hear me? You owe me a kiss, after all.”

Castiel laughed again, and despite the fact that it sounded a bit broken, it was still the best sound to Dean’s ears.

“Hey, Cas?”

“Yes, Dean?” 

“See you on the other side,” Dean gave him a full-blown smile, trying to look as reassuring as possible. At least this time he wouldn’t die, right?

Castiel smiled slightly. And then he was gone.


	10. Chapter 10

Three weeks. It’d been exactly 22 days since he had last seen Castiel. Since Castiel had promised to talk to Anna. But Dean still hadn’t heard anything, not from Balthazar, Anna, or from Castiel himself. And every day that passed without a call from them, Dean felt more on edge. It was excruciating, to say the least.

The first couple of days had been mostly okay. He had spent a bit of time with Sam and Jess, catching up with what was happening in their lives and reassuring them that he was doing better and that whatever had gotten him riled up a few weeks back, was now a thing of the past. Or so he thought. Because now he was pretty much right back where he had been when he had thought that Castiel had died. But there wasn’t much he could do. In what was probably a very misguided idea, he had even started to scan the obits of the daily newspaper every evening before going to bed.

He spent his days at work. After that initial chat, it had turned out that the company was indeed a very good fit and they worked sustainably which made Sam happy. So now that’s where he was, sitting at his big desk in his brand new office, overlooking downtown Palo Alto from the big windows that let in more light for him to draw. It was definitely a company he could see himself stay with for a long time.

They were starting him off with easy projects since he hadn’t worked in a couple of years. And the project was easy enough that he didn’t have to log too many hours just yet. Instead he spent most of his free time at Sam’s place. But even that only helped so much and he was getting to a point now where he just couldn’t stop thinking about it at all. No one had mentioned anything yet, but it was only a matter of time and he really liked his new job.

The last 4 days, he had told himself over and over again that no news was generally good news. Maybe it was just taking a bit longer for Castiel to get better and to be able to talk to Anna and Balthazar. Or maybe there was a problem with his mental capabilities after all. Dean had read up on what sort of problems coma patients would have to deal with after waking up - and it was a long-ass list of things that Dean hoped Castiel didn’t have to deal with.

Dean had thought about calling Balthazar to check in with him, but he didn’t know if the doctor was still on good terms when it came to him or if Anna had effectively convinced him that Dean was a crazy guy, out to harm her brother.

It was late afternoon and he had now worked himself up so much over this that he couldn’t even focus on drawing anymore. Because even if Balthazar thought Dean was a crazy person, he could at least tell him how Castiel was doing, right? The next time Dean checked the clock, it was just before 5pm and Dean was sitting in one of the big leather armchairs in Sammy’s home office that Dean always made fun of because now that Sam was a lawyer he couldn’t just use regular chairs anymore, of course.

His eyes were following the second hand of the old grandfather clock that was standing in the opposite corner and that had belonged to Jess’ father. It freaked Dean out a bit as it was really heavy and dark - and right now he was glaring at it and, with each passing second, he was more convinced that this clock was actually slowing down time.

“Ah, screw it,” he mumbled at two minutes after 5 o’clock, got off the chair and picked up the phone on the large desk in front of him. He quickly dialed the number and, a few moments later, he had been connected with Balthazar’s phone. Dean had given the nurse a false name just in case they had some kind of list with people that they were not allowed to patch through. Now he just needed to make sure that the doctor wasn’t going to hang up on him once he realised it was him.

The waiting queue music was different this time, still classical but this time it actually helped calm him down a bit, which was probably the intention of this music in the first place. It stopped abruptly when someone picked up the phone again, though,

“Balthazar Dupree speaking.”

“Oh, uh. Hey. It’s Dean. Winchester. Please don’t hang up on me.”

“Mr Winchester, I have nothing to say to-”

“Please, just hear me out for a sec?”

“What do you want?” he didn’t really sound angry, maybe a bit short-tempered.

“How is he?”

There was a heavy sigh at the other end of the line and Dean held his breath for a moment, not wanting to push the guy too far. But when he didn’t respond he quickly added,

“Please. I just want to know if he's all right.”

“He is awake. Completely conscious as of ten days ago.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

There was another sigh and Dean was about to say something, beg if he needed to, when Balthazar finally spoke,

“He doesn’t have any major mental impairments but it is going to take him some time to find his bearings again. He is however suffering from cognitive problems.”

“What does that mean?”

“I asked him about you, Dean. He doesn’t remember you.”

“He doesn’t…” Dean felt like he was choking all of a sudden, his rib cage closing in on itself and constricting his airways and pressing on his insides. 

He closed his eyes and tried to hold back the tears that were burning in his eyes. He still couldn’t really convince his lungs to work properly and he was starting to feel a bit lightheaded. So he slumped back down on the armchair and put his head forward between his knees.

“Dean?”

“Yeah,” his own voice sounded really hoarse to him and he tried clearing his throat twice but with no improvement.

“It is perfectly normal after a long coma to have memory problems. Castiel doesn’t remember anything that happened in the month before the accident. It’s called retrograde amnesia. Most of the time it’s not permanent, though.” 

Dean made a noncommittal noise and lifted his upper body back up, his free hand now gripping one of the arm rests. 

“Can I- do you think I could visit him? Maybe he would recognise me?”

“I cannot decide that. And I’m not sure it is a good idea. Castiel is in the middle of physical therapy and has to focus on that right now and...”

“Yeah, I get it,” he didn’t mean to sound so dismissive but whatever he had expected from this phonecall, this wasn’t it. 

“I’m sorry.”

Dean didn’t notice the doctor hanging up, or the tone that had been beeping for the last couple of minutes now. He was just sitting there, unable to move because Castiel didn’t remember.

Castiel did not remember him.

* * * *

When Dean woke up, he wasn’t quite sure where he was or what time it was. He also wasn’t quite sure how he had ended up on the couch in his brother’s living room when there was a perfectly fine bed waiting for him in the guest room. Looking up from where he was currently lying flat on his stomach he noticed that the sun had just begun to rise and that he was still in his clothes from yesterday.

It took him another moment to find his phone which was lodged between his right leg and the couch cushion. After he had switched it back on he realised it was Sunday, which was good because he didn’t need to go to work. So instead of getting up, he dropped his head back down and buried it in the decorative pillows that he was sure his brother had picked out. He made a mental note to make fun of him for that at a later point, and didn’t move again until a couple of hours later when Sam came downstairs, donning his running outfit and with a water bottle in hand. Thankfully, he didn’t see Dean on the couch, or if he did then he mercifully decided to ignore it for now, and closed the door on his way out without saying anything.

Dean figured it was as good a time as any to just get up and make himself some coffee. Jess was probably not gonna come downstairs for another hour, as she liked to sleep in on Sundays just as much as Dean did. Sometimes it boggled his mind how Sam and Jess were even together, but then they were also all kinds of perfect for each other.

As he grabbed himself a dry piece of toast, his thoughts kept going back to the phone call last night. He was happy that Castiel was doing better and that he seemed to be doing okay physically. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Castiel didn’t remember him. Like the past few weeks hadn’t happened or had just happened in Dean’s head. Maybe Dean could pretend that it had really just been in his head, a temporary case of insanity. 

What else could he do, really?

But when Sam came back from his run 20 minutes later, he was sitting in front of his laptop back on the couch, reading up on everything about comas and people that had experienced strange things while they were in a coma and, most importantly, remembered it. 

In the majority of cases he had researched, most people didn’t remember anything from their time during the coma. It was like they had been in a dreamless slumber for weeks, months or even years. And while those with amnesia usually recovered, no one talked about what had happened to their “consciousness” during the coma.

Dean sighed and closed all tabs but one about the different conditions and disabilities that coma patients can suffer from after waking up. He read about cognitive changes in a person, mood swings and amnesia, or retrograde amnesia as Balthazar had called it. 

Balthazar had also said that Castiel might regain his memory from before the accident. But the problem with that was that Castiel didn’t know Dean before the accident. So whatever was going on in Castiel's brain may not even be affecting Castiel's memory from when he was in the coma. Maybe he needed to approach this differently.

Eventually, he found a collection of statements from people on a website about the unexplained. And after reading two of those statements, he came across a very familiar name. Which is why Dean found himself standing in front of “Books of the Damned” once again two hours later.

Charlie was already waiting for him as he entered the store, a huge grin on her face and a pile of books in her arms. 

“Hey Dean, glad you’re finally here,” she turned around and dumped the pile of books on a small table in the middle of the room that then made suspiciously creaky sounds as if it was about to collapse under all the weight.

When Charlie saw the confusion on Dean’s face, she actually snickered, her eyes twinkling with mischief,

“Call it intuition. So, how is your ghost friend?”

“He-uh… he is doing better. Woke up a few weeks ago.”

“Oh, fantastic. Does he remember anything?”

Dean dropped his gaze and shrugged his shoulders slightly.

“Oh. I’m sorry, dude. That is why you're here, isn’t it? Okay, come on,” Charlie waved her arm at him to follow her to the back of the store, where they walked through a door and into a small tea kitchen with a table and a few chairs scattered around them. Charlie nodded at the table for Dean to sit down and started fussing around the cupboards. 

“You want some coffee?” she asked absentmindedly, not even turning around but instead filling the kettle up with water. Dean just grunted an affirmative, watching her get out two cups from the shelf. Once she had poured the water into the chipped mugs and placed one of them in front of Dean, she sat down across from him with an earnest looking face.

“Okay, so I’m afraid there isn’t a cure-all for these kinds of situations. But…,” Charlie put her hand on his free hand, and when he looked up at her she was smiling reassuringly,

“I met this couple from Austin a few years back that was in a similar situation. Well, they knew each other before but then the guy had a stroke and fell into a coma. She was the only one who could talk to him while he was in the coma. And when he finally woke up, he didn’t remember her. But that was two years ago and they got married last year.”

“They got married? Even though he didn’t remember her?”

“He... fell in love with her again,” Charlie shrugged, her face breaking out into a wide smile.

Dean let out a long sigh. 

“And what am I supposed to do with that exactly?"

“Well, they did say that it can help trigger certain memories by looking at things that you two experienced together. Or just telling him what happened.”

“Charlie, I’m not even allowed to see him. And how’s it going to sound when I waltz in there and tell him I know him from when he was a fucking ghost.”

Charlie gave him a look, then shook her head and smiled at him.

“For what it’s worth, I can feel that this is not the end of your story. You’ll figure something out. Love always finds a way, after all.”

Dean huffed a laugh, “That is not at all cheesy.”

“Oh, it’s so cheesy. But it also happens to be true.”

They drank up their coffees, and Dean promised to pop by once he had managed to talk to Castiel and let Charlie know if he needed her help again. But mostly, she said, she just wanted updates because she was a sucker for love stories. Dean blushed when she said it but didn’t deny it, either.

* * * *

Dean spent the next two weeks mostly focused on his work, racking up a lot of overtime to try and take his mind off the whole thing. Last night his estate agent had called him with news that he was now free to rent the apartment indefinitely - which was good because he had really liked the place and was still camping out in Sam and Jess’s place. But it also meant that Castiel would most likely move in with Anna and wouldn’t go back there, which also meant he wouldn’t get a chance to talk to him. He had decided to go back in the end because he still had to finish that garden.

And that was what he did a week later, after having signed the contract and moved all of his stuff from Sam’s place and the storage once again. Sam and Jess had told him he could stay as long as he wanted, but he knew they would never throw him out even after he had outstayed his welcome.

So instead he focused on his work and the garden, making a list of things he still needed to finish. After he had finished that, however, his thoughts drifted right back to Castiel. He really wasn’t sure what else to do that would get him closer to him. If the guy didn’t even remember him and Anna was still convinced that Dean was a stalker, then there really was no way for him to even talk to Castiel.

Charlie had said that their story wasn’t over yet, far from it even. But what was he supposed to do? Just sit and wait for Anna to come around, for Balthazar to feed him secret intel on where Castiel was, or for Castiel to remember him anyway despite the fact that that was highly unlikely? He had never believed that things just needed to run their course and this was no exception.

* * * *

During the next two weeks he got the occasional update from Balthazar on Castiel’s progress and every time it got harder for him to not just drop everything and visit Castiel himself. Apparently, he really had moved back in with his sister. And Balthazar insisted that Castiel’s cognitive problems were still too severe to try and force him to remember things from before the accident.

It was on a late afternoon on Saturday, another three weeks later, when Dean decided he needed a good distraction and decided to go all the way up to the big Target up in Redwood City on Saturday afternoon for his weekly grocery shopping. And as he was pushing his cart past the aisles, his forearms resting on the handle in front of him, he didn’t really pay attention to anyone else. His shopping list was quite short but he tried to at least walk down every single aisle to kill more time. 

Currently, there were two boxes of Apple Jacks in his cart, two frozen pizzas and coffee. He was on his way to get the milk when something caught his attention in his peripheral vision. The place wasn’t empty but this was the first time since he had entered the store that he actually looked up from the cart.

It took a few moments for his brain to catch up with what he saw then, and it was a fucking miracle that his knees didn’t just give out under him, because 10 feet in front of him was Castiel, squinting at two packages of what looked like cake batter mix like it was just another normal day. Only, it wasn’t. Dean hadn’t seen him in weeks, hadn’t actually ever seen him like this. And it was screwing with his brain so much that he must have looked like a complete idiot just standing there, staring at a guy with batter mix in his hands.

When he realised what he was doing, he let go of the cart handle to relax his fingers but didn’t take his eyes off Castiel. He looked different somehow. Even from where Dean was standing, Castiel was attractive, even if he was currently wearing a weird trenchcoat. But he still had that notoriously disheveled hair. He was also sporting slight stubble. It was the best thing Dean had ever seen.

He wasn’t quite sure what to do next when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his right foot, and then he heard a loud clattering noise and before he realised what was happening, he felt something hit his head and his arms moved up to cover himself from whatever was hurting him. 

Eventually, it stopped and Dean carefully opened his eyes, still hunched over. He lowered his arms and looked around himself. Apparently, his cart had knocked out the bottom part of a can pyramid when he hadn’t been paying attention, successfully bringing the whole thing down on himself.

“Are you okay?”

Dean’s gaze lifted from the cans in front of him to where the voice had come from. He noticed a slight pain on his forehead where a can must have hit him, but his whole focus was on the man in front of him. Because, of course, Castiel would come and check on that weirdo who had just knocked over 200 cans of Heinz tomato soup.

Castiel had a worried look on his face, his eyes roaming over Dean’s body like he was checking there were no injuries, eventually coming to rest just above his eyes. 

“Sir?”

“What? Uh-yeah. No. I’m good.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, absolutely. I am dandy. No problemo,” he sputtered, his hand rubbing his neck as he dropped his gaze to look at the cans in front of him.

“Guess the cans won, huh?” Castiel quipped and when Dean looked back up, he was pointing at the spot above his eyes. Dean lifted his right hand to touch his forehead and when he lowered his fingers they had a little bit of blood on them. One of the cans must have lacerated the skin.

“You sure you are okay? They probably have a First Aid Kit around here somewhere...,” Castiel trailed off and then marched off before Dean could say anything else. 

But he was back a few moments later just as Dean’s head had started to throb faintly.

“Can you tell me what day it is today?”

“What?”

Dean looked back at Castiel who was suddenly standing very close, a worried expression on his face.

“What day is it today?”

“Sa-Saturday.”

Castiel nodded at him and then lifted his finger in front of Dean’s face, told him to follow it with his eyes and then proceeded to move it to the right and then to the left side of his face.

“Are you feeling dizzy? Any nausea or blurry vision?” 

Castiel dropped his hand but kept his gaze steady on Dean and it took all of Dean’s willpower to figure out how to reply when those blue eyes were so close to him. He ended up shaking his head now, not trusting his voice with Castiel so close.

“Good. That means you probably don’t have a concussion,” Castiel said and then had the audacity to smile, crinkles around the eyes and all. 

“Dude, how did you manage that?” someone asked behind them and when Castiel moved his eyes towards the voice, breaking the staring contest they had going on up until that point, Dean managed to finally kick his brain back into action.

Within the next five minutes, the store manager appeared, making sure Dean was not going to sue them, and then he found himself sitting in a small office in the back with a woman who was apparently the designated first aid person. She had put a bandaid on his face and was now filling out a report. She finally let him go after he signed a statement that he would not sue them over a stack of soup and agreed to let him finish his shopping. But of course, when he got back to the aisle and his cart, Castiel was long gone.

* * * *

Dean spent the rest of the weekend moping because he couldn’t believe how lucky he had been to actually run into Castiel but then messed it all up by being a klutz. He couldn’t stop thinking about it either, kept replaying it in his head over and over again trying to figure out if Castiel had given him any sign that he had recognised Dean.

At least he had a small chance of bumping into him again. He was just going to go back there on Saturday and loiter there for as long as possible before anyone noticed, to see if this was something Castiel did regularly. So Monday morning, as he was pouring sugar into his coffee at the small coffee shop a few blocks from his apartment his mood had improved a bit. 

He grabbed one of those little wooden stirrers when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, can you… Oh, hello,” and even before Dean turned around he knew. 

And what do you know, there was Castiel with a cup of what looked like tea, judging from the little string hanging over the edge of the cup, smiling at him. He was wearing that trenchcoat again, but underneath he was wearing low riding jeans and a rather tight dark shirt, and Dean needed to stop staring.

“Hi,” Dean croaked, feeling his face flush when he realised the stirrer was dripping onto his shoes now. He quickly turned back around and threw it in the small bin on the counter.

“How's the head? That flock of cans looked like a nasty bunch,” Castiel said, a smug grin playing on his lips. 

“Flock?”

“Yes, I believe that is the technical term,” Castiel tried to suppress the smile but failed miserably which in turn made Dean giggle like a little schoolboy. No eyeroll was sufficient for this sort of embarrassing behaviour. 

Then Castiel frowned at him, opened his mouth but then looked down at his shoes, his eyes moving back and forth as if he was trying to remember something. After a few moments he looked back at Dean, his expression a bit softer this time.

“I-um… apologies, I have trouble remembering people. But have we met? Before the can incident, I mean? I feel like I know you from somewhere else.”

Dean just stared at him for a few moments. This was good. Right? At least Castiel seemed to remember his face from somewhere. This he could probably work with.

“Uh, yeah,” he croaked out, then cleared his throat before continuing, “I‘m Dean. I work as a landscape architect and you hired me to design a garden for your rooftop?”

The frown on Castiel was replaced by a surprised look, almost like he couldn’t believe that he could have ever done such a thing. 

“I could show you the designs some time, if you want,” Dean tried carefully, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Oh. I don’t live there anymore, unfortunately. I apologise if you did the work for nothing. I was involved in a vehicle accident and was quite unwell for a while.”

“Oh. But you are okay now?”

“Yes, thank you, Dean,” Castiel replied softly and the smile on his face short circuited Dean’s brain once again. And he missed whatever Castiel had said next because now the guy was just staring at him with an expectant look on his face. 

“Sorry, what?”

“I was just wondering if you wanted to join-,” at that moment something started to ring and then Castiel pushed his free hand into his jacket’s pocket and pulled out a phone.

“Oh, sorry. I have to take this. Goodbye, Dean,” he said and then nodded at him, pressed a button on the phone to answer it as he walked out of the shop. And Dean let out a long breath, only just now realising he had held it for quite some time.

* * * *

The next time Dean ran into Castiel was in the frozen food aisle of the 24-hour Safeway near the hospital on Thursday night.

Of course, at this time the store was about as empty as ever. Who would even leave their house at ass o’clock at night to go grocery shopping? Lunatics, insomniacs and students, is who. Also former comatose people and people who thought about the former too much to be able to sleep, apparently. 

Dean found Castiel standing in front of one of the freezers, peering through the glass door, his breath fogging up the glass in front of his face. As Dean slowly approached him, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, he saw that Castiel was squinting at whatever he was trying to read.

“You know, those doors actually open,” Dean said as he slowly walked over to Castiel with a smug smile.

“Dean. Hello.” 

The expression on Castiel's face softened when he recognised Dean. The guy was probably just glad it was none of the freaks who roamed the aisles at this time of night.

“Whatcha doing staring at frozen poultry at 2 in the morning?” 

“Buying muesli,” Castiel deadpanned and Dean couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped him which in turn made Castiel smile at him warmly before he went on, “I couldn’t sleep. What brings you to the centre of nightly commerce?” Castiel opened the door and grabbed a pack of frozen chicken legs, then proceeded to drop it into his empty basket.

“Oh, I was bored. Thought I’d start a fight with some cereal boxes.”

This time it was Castiel who laughed out loud, a deep belly laugh that made his eyes crinkle and Dean’s heart flutter. And then they stared at each other for a long moment and, in the endless sequence of chick flick moments that was his life now, almost felt like when you came home after a long trip. 

Suddenly, there was a loud yelp a few aisles down and they both turned around and saw a green-haired guy on a skateboard trying to juggle a few cans of red bull while turning around a corner and just barely making it. 

“I better get going. It was very nice meeting you again, Dean.”

“Yeah. Maybe… Maybe we could do it again?”

“No offense, Dean, but I am not sure I wanna come back here at this time of night.”

“Fair enough,” Dean held up his hands and chuckled. And then he watched Castiel with his basket and his frozen chicken legs turn around and disappear into the aisle that lead to the cash registers.

This was ridiculous. Dean knew he had been lucky so far, so shouldn’t he do carpe diem or whatever that saying was and go after Castiel? But then Castiel would probably freak out because he kept running into this random guy who claimed he knew him. It would be like Anna all over again and he didn’t wanna screw his chances completely by pushing Castiel to tell Anna about him. 

So instead he spent another ten minutes pushing his own cart around, hating himself and the universe once again, and eventually ended up buying some milk and some discounted pie from yesterday. Not a bad haul, if you’d asked Dean. He went to pay for everything, put it in one of the paper bags and then made his way outside to where his car was parked. 

When he wheeled the cart back, he noticed someone sitting on one of the small stone benches that they had put up all over the parking lot. He had to squint to make sure because the lighting here was abysmal but that was clearly Castiel sitting there with a box on his lap.

Dean jogged over to him, leaving the cart where it was.

“Hey, man. You okay? Do you need a lift?”

He stopped in front of where Castiel was sitting, looking at him. Only then did he notice that something was off. For starters, Castiel was just sitting there, in the middle of an empty parking lot at night. And from what Dean could tell the package of frozen chicken had started to melt in his lap, a dark wet spot forming on his trenchcoat. 

“Hey Cas, what’s going on?” he knelt down in front of Castiel, holding himself steady on the bench with his right hand.

When Castiel finally looked up, Dean saw the panic in his eyes. He let his eyes roam over Castiel's whole body to look for anything unusual and then noticed the tight grip of his fingers on the package in his lap. His breathing was steady, although a bit shallow and from what Dean could tell, he didn’t seem injured.

“I don’t remember,” he heard Castiel whisper. 

“You don’t remember?”

“I don’t know what to do, Dean,” his voice sounded so broken and fragile that Dean wanted to pull Castiel into a hug right then and there, tell him that he was safe and that Dean wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

Instead he sat down on the floor with his legs underneath him, his hands resting in his lap but itching to touch Castiel. That would have to wait because this didn’t look like a situation where touch would be of much help.

“Can you tell me what’s going on, Cas?” he tried to keep his own voice as quiet as possible as he said that. It seemed to work because Castiel's grip on the box eased up a bit, the drops of water clearly visible where his fingers had held it tight. Dean slowly pried it out of Castiel's hands and set it down next to him on the bench. 

Castiel's hands remained in their curled up positions for a few seconds before he turned them around and stared at them.

“You know, I used to be able to save lives with these hands,” he whispered, as he folded his hands together and then let them drop into his lap again,

“But now, now I can’t even remember where I live or how to get there. Isn’t that just crazy?” 

Dean’s heart broke at the sound Castiel made then, because it sounded nothing like that happy laugh he had heard not ten minutes ago. 

“Do you have a phone with you?”

Castiel shook his head slowly, his head dropping down between his shoulders.

“Okay, uhm, how about you come back with me to my car. It’s right over there? I can give you a lift home,” Dean smiled at Castiel when the guy raised his head again, a panicked expression on his face.

“Right, you don’t know me. Why would you... Oh wait, you know Balthazar right? I have his number in my phone. Do you want me to call him?”

Dean saw the tears in Castiel's eyes and once again had to tell himself not to get too close to him and make this whole situation even worse. He was already pulling his phone out of his jeans when Castiel finally nodded at him. And then he dialed the hospital number and prayed to whatever deity was listening to him that Balthazar was working tonight.

It rang a few times before one of the nurses in neurology picked up,

“Stanford Medical, how may I help you?”

“Yes, I need to talk to Balthazar Dupree.”

“I’m sorry. Dr. Dupree is not avail-”

“It’s an emergency. Please, can you let him know that it is about Castiel Novak?”

“Oh, okay. Please hold,” the guy said and patched him through. He had to wait another ten seconds, his eyes firmly trained on Castiel who was still sitting on the bench, now back to staring at his hands.

“Anna?” Balthazar asked right after picking up the phone.

“No, it’s Dean.”

“Dean? What is going on?”

“Cas is with me,” Dean interrupted the doctor and saw Castiel lift his head a bit when he spoke.

“What?”

“I ran into him at the 24/7 Safeway. He is not feeling very well and I need you to tell me Anna’s address so I can give him a lift home.”

“What happened?”

“Not sure. But I think he just wants to go home.”

“Can you put him on?”

“Uh-yeah. Hang on,” Dean lowered the phone and knelt back down to be level with Castiel's face.

“Hey, Cas? Balthazar wants to talk to you. That okay?”

Castiel, who had put his face into his hands extended one hand and Dean put his phone into it.

“Balthazar? … Yes … I am fine… yes…. I don’t know …. no…,” as the conversation progressed Castiel's voice became more and more broken, and Dean suddenly felt nauseated because there was nothing he could do to help Castiel.

“Dean?“

Castiel was handing him the phone, the call apparently not over, so he pressed it against his ear again,

“Yes?”

“Anna’s address is 704 Oak Grove Avenue. It’s about ten minutes from where you are but you would have to take him there by foot. He doesn’t deal with car rides very well.”

Oh shit, of course he had panicked when Dean had suggested giving him a lift. He was such an idiot sometimes.

“No problem.”

“Are you sure? You could just take him here and I could give Anna a call...”

“Do you really think that is the best idea?”

“Yeah, no. You are right. You really don’t mind?”

“No. I’ll take him.”

“Okay, let me know once you have dropped him off, please. And thanks, Dean.”

After he had hung up and stuffed his phone back into his pocket, he turned back to Castiel who was now leaning against the backrest of the bench, his eyes watching Dean.

“Okay, come on. I’ll take you home,” he made a movement with his arm to signal for Castiel to get up. Castiel watched him for a moment longer and then slowly got up. He grabbed his soggy package of chicken legs and followed Dean down towards the traffic lights.

They walked in silence for the first bit, Dean checking the maps app on his phone every once in a while to make sure they were still going in the right direction and every once in awhile he snuck a peek at Castiel, who was walking behind him, to make sure he was still there. Old habits die hard, he thought.

When they turned onto Oak Grove Avenue Castiel caught up with him again,

“Why do you keep calling me Cas?”

Dean almost tripped over a part of a tree stump then, not expecting Castiel's voice to sound so loud. After he had collected himself again, he decided to act cool.

“I don’t know. Maybe because Castiel is such a mouthful?”

Castiel huffed a laugh and then they walked for another five minutes before they reached Anna’s place. But instead of going inside Castiel just stood there, his head half turned away. A few seconds later he turned back to stare at Dean.

“What?” Dean asked, feeling very self-conscious all of a sudden. 

But Castiel was just staring at him, his eyes squinted and his head tilted to the side like he was trying to figure out what Dean had just said. Dean was quite sure that he hadn’t mentioned anything that could have warranted this behaviour.

Then he suddenly shuffled over to Dean and stopped only a few inches in front of him. He could actually feel Castiel's breath on his face and it was hard to concentrate on anything else but those blue eyes on him. And even in the dark, his shape illuminated by the street lanterns behind him, they were positively glowing.

They stood like this for what felt like a really long time, just staring at each other. With those goddamn baby blues in front of him, it was really difficult for Dean to make his brain do the thing where it manages to form words and express them through his mouth.

Speaking of mouths - Castiel's eyes suddenly dropped to his lips and then back up to Dean’s eyes as if to ask for permission. Only, he didn’t wait for Dean to respond and instead leaned forward. But just as Castiel's lips were about to touch his, he felt something wet touch his leg and jumped back, nearly toppling over the edge of the sidewalk in the process. And as he looked back at Castiel he saw the dripping box of chicken Castiel was still clutching in his hand and that must have touched his leg when… oh.

“I-uh… I don’t know why I just did that. I should go. Thank you for your help, Dean,” Castiel looked at him for a moment longer, his eyes wide in horror before he just dropped the chicken, turned around and stalked off towards the door where he, as silently as possible, unlocked it. A second later, he had vanished behind the dark wooden door.

And Dean just stood there for a moment, unable to move a single bone in his body because he wasn’t sure what had just happened.


	11. Chapter 11

Castiel leaned against the inside of the front door of Anna’s house with a sigh. His heart was racing in his chest, like it was trying to get away from the rest of the body, with a deep and fast thrum. 

He had almost kissed Dean.

Maybe it was the confusion he had experienced at the supermarket. He had become so frustrated with himself for not remembering where he lived, where his sister had lived for over 5 years now. Or maybe it was the plethora of drugs he was still taking every day, maybe they were screwing with his sense of decency, turning off the part of his brain that was responsible for deciding whether something was a good decision or not. Although, he still didn’t feel like what he had almost done was wrong. Just thinking about those lips so close to his made him smile. There was no denying that he was attracted to Dean, how could he not be with eyes like that. And that smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle, and those freckles… 

He sighed again, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. He was so exhausted. To be fair, that was nothing new. His physical therapist was still pushing him to his limits every single time, even though he had made quite some progress since waking up. But the fact that he still spent most of his time at home was really starting to get to him. 

“Castiel?” he heard from the top of the stairs, a small shadow hovering there. Castiel squinted his eyes before he realised that of course it was Anna, wrapped in a blanket that was usually lying on his bed - she must have checked in on him and grabbed it when he wasn’t there.

“Hey, sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No, don’t be silly. What are you doing down here in the middle of the night?” she slowly descended the stairs, her right hand scratching a spot on her head, the tie in her hair almost completely slipping off. When she was halfway down she stopped, pursing her lips at him, “Completely dressed?” 

“Oh, I-uh…,” Castiel lifted his hands, the keys still clutched in his left hand, then looked back at Anna.

“You are not going for a walk in the middle of the night, Castiel.”

Anna crossed her arms in front of her chest, looking at him with raised eyebrows and it was definitely one of her scarier older sister looks. For a moment he considered telling her she was too late just to spite her but eventually decided against it because she just wanted what was best for him. And let’s be honest, it hadn’t been the best of ideas to go shopping and then forget where he lived. If it hadn’t been for Dean he might still be there…

“I guess not. Now that you got to me before I could stage my escape from Alcatraz,” Castiel shrugged then dropped the keys on the table next to the door and sighed again for good measure.

“Well, come on then, inmate. I’ll tuck you back in,” Anna dropped her arms and motioned for him to follow her back upstairs. 

And after he convinced Anna that he was not gonna try to get out again, she let him undress and go back to bed in peace. Although, he was quite sure he heard her go back downstairs, probably to sit on the couch in the living room in case he should decide he wanted to sneak out again. He was really lucky she didn’t realise he had already been outside for two hours. He really didn’t wanna deal with pissed off Anna more than he had to. He was also glad he had dropped the chicken outside, even if that had not been on purpose but in panic.

It suddenly dawned on him that Balthazar knew what had happened so he grabbed his phone to text him and beg him not to tell Anna what had happened. The short message took him 10 minutes to write, because of course, he was tired and it was difficult to concentrate on the small screen even on good days. But most of the time it was his hands refusing to cooperate. He usually tried to ignore this fact as much as possible because from there it was slippery slope down an even more depressing line of thought. Castiel hadn’t really talked to anyone about what was going to happen in a few weeks, after he had finished physical therapy and had been cleared to go back to his normal life. And what would happen to his career as a doctor.

But he was definitely too tired to think about this now and thankfully, Balthazar got back to him almost immediately, promising him not to tell Anna before he had talked to Castiel. Well, that was something, he supposed.

* * * *

When Castiel woke up it took him a few minutes to fully wake up, which was not unusual because his whole sleep cycle was still messed up. But for the first time since he woke up from the coma, he felt good and rested. Maybe that little trip last night had helped after all. 

He checked the time on his alarm clock - it was just past noon which was not unusual for him these days since he sometimes nodded off in the afternoon for a bit and then didn’t manage to fall back asleep until 2 or 3am. That and the fact that Anna had instigated the no alarm rule, and after some protest, had then told him that if she ever heard any kind of alarm she was going to chain him to the bed. Castiel was only half sure she had been kidding about that.

After he had taken a shower and put on some sweatpants and his old UC San Diego shirt he made his way downstairs. Since it was early afternoon Anna was probably sitting at her laptop in the living room trying to get some work done. He really wasn’t sure how she had managed to convince her bosses to let her work from home most days, but somehow she had.

He found Anna sitting at the small counter table that was meant for two, but only really had enough space for one; her laptop crammed on top of a stack of old magazines, cradling a cup of tea in her hands. Castiel went straight for the kettle, the mug with the green tea bag already put there earlier by his sister. He turned to his left, lifting his arm to open the cupboard and grab one of the plates when he suddenly felt Anna behind him, her arm reaching further into the cupboard to take the plate.

“I got some bagels from the bakery down the road, if you like,” Anna placed the plate next to her laptop on the counter and grabbed a brown paper bag from the top of the fridge.

Castiel didn’t say anything. He was not a morning person and even the big hit on the head hadn’t helped with that. He liked it quiet in the morning, even if it was afternoon. So they sat in silence, Castiel eating half a bagel while Anna typed away on her laptop. And as he focused on the taste of the bagel, his thoughts drifted back to last night, back to Dean. 

Ever since Dean had looked at him with those wide eyes last night when he had found him on that bench, his expression so full of worry and maybe expectation, Castiel couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to them than just the fact that Castiel apparently had hired the guy to design him a garden. Even if, for some reason, Dean had a crush on him, there was no way he would have looked at Castiel like he did last night. And even when Dean put an end to his attempt to kiss him, he didn’t feel like he was being rejected. Maybe something else happened before the accident. Maybe they started dating but now Dean was afraid to freak him out?

Castiel wasn’t too sure about a lot of things from the weeks before the accident. But he was convinced something had happened with Dean. Maybe he just needed to ask him and get Dean to tell him what he didn’t remember. So he decided, as he put the last bite of bagel into his mouth, that he would go and find Balthazar later after his physical therapy appointment and ask him about Dean.

* * * *

“You want his phone number?” 

The leather chair made a sound as Balthazar dropped himself on it across from where Castiel had already been sitting for a few minutes before his friend had joined him. He hadn’t bothered with an explanation of what exactly had happened last night, instead going straight to what he had come by for in the first place.

Castiel shrugged at his friend, trying to feign nonchalance when he was really nervous about possibly talking to Dean again.

“I just wanted to thank him, for last night.”

Balthazar gave him a look that said he didn’t really believe him but was debating whether or not to follow up on that. Eventually, he sighed and pulled out his phone.

“One question though, before I do this,” he put the phone down on his desk, putting both his hands down on it.

Castiel had taken his own phone out, about to hand it to Balthazar so he could put it in when he noticed the stern look on the other guy’s face.

“Last night you said you trust him. Why?”

Castiel leaned back in the chair, his chest deflating in defeat. How was he going to explain to Balthazar what he felt? Especially, when it should really freak him out. 

“I know him from before the accident.”

“You… remember him?”

“Not… exactly.”

And when Balthazar just looked at him inquisitively, Castiel continued,

“I’ve met him before last night. A few days ago. And he said I hired him to design a garden for the rooftop of my old apartment.”

Balthazar didn’t seem surprised in the least, instead nodding his head as if this was old news to him. It was unnerving.

“What?”

“Oh nothing.”

And then suddenly Castiel realised something. Dean had called Balthazar last night and he had his number saved in his phone. Okay, he was clearly missing the punchline here.

“Castiel, do you remember Dean from before the accident?”

“I-uh… I am not sure. But when I ran into him the first time, I felt like I did? It is a strange feeling because I do not remember meeting him before. But at the same time it feels like I’ve known him for quite some time.”

Castiel dropped his gaze as he felt the flush on his face. Then he realised he was blushing about a guy he shouldn’t know but felt so close to for some reason. Whatever was going on, he was going to figure this out. 

Balthazar sighed heavily and then smiled at his friend, “I guess in that case, you should really talk to him. Just don’t tell Anna about this yet.”

He frowned, looking back at Balthazar again. Yesterday it had been Castiel who had to beg him not to tell on him and now it was the other way around. But Balthazar just moved his hands up in defeat and laughed a bit, 

“Talk to Dean,” he got off his chair, stepped around the desk to stand right next to Castiel and grabbed his phone to punch in Dean’s number before handing it back to him,

“I’m not going to get involved in this anymore. And now excuse me, but there is some cake waiting for me in the doctor’s lounge.”

* * * *

Castiel spent the next few hours trying to work up enough courage to actually text Dean, and by the time Anna had started preparing dinner, he had a few different text messages made up in his head. So now he was sitting in the living room, phone clutched in his hands trying to decide which version he was going to send. 

His fingers were not massively cooperative today so he had only managed “Hello Dean” so far but he guessed it would allow him to actually think about what he was going to send. He slowly typed “This is Castiel” but then proceeded to delete the last four letters and smiled. It was probably the least strange thing about it, that he actually quite liked the nickname even though he had always hated it from other people, even Anna hadn’t been allowed ever since they had been kids.

As he was about to type the next part, his right hand suddenly cramped up, the phone slipping out of his hands before he could catch it again. It dropped onto the hardwood floor with a loud bang and he squeezed his eyes shut, letting himself fall back against the pillows behind him. 

“Hey, are you okay in here?” he heard Anna from across the room before he opened his eyes, a wry smile on his face as she came walking over when she realised what had happened. But before Castiel could say anything, Anna dropped to her knees to pick up the phone. He took a few deep breaths before he sat up again and then his eyes fell on Anna who was now kneeling on the floor, staring at his phone.

“Why are you texting Dean Winchester, Castiel?”

Castiel just frowned at her, completely lost and not sure why Anna would know who Dean was. Unless. No, hadn’t Balthazar mentioned something about this? His short-term memory really needed to start working properly again soon.

“Castiel,” Anna was still clutching the phone in her hands, her expression stern and probing.

“I-uh, he’s this guy I ran into at the supermarket,” he shrugged at her, hoping she would get what he was trying to say here. He really didn’t want to tell her about the strange pull he felt towards Dean but if he could convince her that he had just liked him and gotten his number, then that should be all right.

“Okay,” she got up from the floor and sat down next to him, the phone resting in her lap as she took his cramped up hand into hers to massage it. She was quiet for a moment and then looked up at him, “Castiel, I don’t think you should talk to Dean.”

“What? Why?”

“He came to visit you at the hospital when you were still in a coma. And he claimed that you two had dated before the accident. Do you remember that?”

“No, but Anna I don’t remember a lot from those weeks before, you know that.”

“Yes, but did you know that Dean moved into your apartment when I sublet it? I bet he did not tell you that.“

Castiel stared at her, trying to process the information he had just been given. Surely, there must be an obvious explanation for that.

“I think he is some kind of stalker.”

That made Castiel frown, but before he could ask her, she continued,

“I asked him why he rented your apartment.”

“And what did he say?”

“Well, I didn’t really let him explain,” she gave him a helpless shrug.

Anna was about to say something else, but Castiel drew his arm away from her and turned around to face her properly,

“I don’t remember him from before the accident but when I ran into him, there was something there. It is really strange and, rationally speaking, this should really freak me out, but I feel like I know him.”

Anna sighed, looking at him with sad eyes and something else Castiel really didn’t want to examine too much. He knew his sister was only looking out for him. But this was something he really needed to figure out on his own.

“Listen. I know you just want what is best for me. And I really do appreciate everything you have done for me, Anna. But I need to see this through, okay? I need to get back to normality. But if I keep listening to my annoying big sister then I won’t be able to.”

Anna huffed a laugh, bumping his shoulder with her own.

“Just promise me that you’ll be careful?“

“Of course. I was just going to ask him if he wanted to meet for coffee.”

“Can I come?”

“No.”

Anna gave him a fake pout and then dropped her hands on the phone that was still in her lap. She held it for a moment and then finally handed it back to him, and then added in her big sister voice,

“I am going to drive you there and pick you up. That is non-negotiable.”

“Deal,” Castiel said and then took the phone from her with the hand that wasn’t cramped up.

Anna nodded at him and then got up, only to lean down and kiss the top of his head, “Dinner is ready in 5.”

Castiel unlocked his phone again and then composed the rest of the message. He told Dean he got his number from Balthazar because he wanted to thank him for last night and see if he maybe wanted to get a coffee. He sent it off and when he checked his phone again after dinner he had two unread messages. 

_Hey Cas! No worries, glad I could help. :)_ followed by _And yes to coffee. When do you wanna do it?_

Castiel stared at the second message for a long time, trying to figure out if he might be misreading anything. Did Dean only jump back because he was worried it might have seemed like he was using him? That he actually wanted to kiss Castiel? 

He felt the corners of his mouth lift and felt relieved. He was about to start typing when he thought, screw it, and before he could talk himself out of it he just clicked on the green button to call Dean, otherwise he would have probably just spent another half hour trying to type the next message.

Dean picked up after the fourth ring, just before Castiel was about to hang up.

“Hey,” he breathed and it sounded like he was a bit out of breath.

“Hello, Dean. This is Castiel, sorry, am I interrupting something?”

“No! I was just … no, I just had to run to catch you before it goes to voicemail.”

“Ah, okay. Good. I just thought I’d give you a call instead because my motor skills are preventing me from typing at an adequate speed. I did not want you to think I am taking my time to reply on purpose,” his voice wavered a bit as he trailed off, forcing himself to stop ranting.

“No worries, man.”

“Can I ask you something, Dean?” Castiel suddenly sputtered and shocked himself, because that was not what he had wanted to say.

“Sure.” 

Castiel, of course, couldn’t see Dean but he could hear the smile in his voice and it made his heart jump for some reason. But that only reinforced what he wanted to ask him.

“Forgive my bluntness, but I am still having issues with remembering what happened before my accident…but were we involved, before the accident. Romantically?”

The line went eerily quiet for a long moment, and Castiel held his breath as to not miss any kind of reaction from Dean. Even if he was wrong about this, he just needed to know because there was something about the other man from the first moment Castiel had laid eyes on him, and not being able to figure it out was really starting to get on his nerves. And now Dean wasn’t saying anything, probably trying to come up with some kind of excuse so he could let him down easily. That made Castiel panic so he sighed and then, quietly and as composed as possible, said,

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

“No, sorry! No, you are right, there was,” Dean cleared his throat and then it was quiet again before he continued, “it’s just, this might not be the best conversation to have over the phone.”

“Oh.”

“We could have that coffee tomorrow morning, if you want? I don’t need to be at work until later, so I could meet you somewhere... ”

“Oh, okay. Yes, that would be nice,” Castiel wasn’t sure why Dean had said he didn’t want to talk about this right now but instead of dwelling on it, he vowed to wait and let Dean explain the next day.

* * * *

They agreed to meet at a coffee shop down at Stanford Medical since Castiel had another check-up the next day. Dean had never been there but Castiel swore it was worth it for the sweet pastries and the heavenly coffee. Dean told him he had had him at pastry which had made Castiel laugh. 

He was a bit early, having finished his doctor’s appointment ahead of time, so he sat down at one of the tables in the far corner. Anna had driven him down to the appointment but he had made her go back home and then told her to wait for him to text her. The doctor hadn’t told him anything new today - his hands were improving slowly but there was still no telling if he would ever go back to normal. But from what he knew from his own medical training, he had long since accepted the fact that his chances of going back to being a doctor were next to nil. So he had called Anna on his way over here and told her everything was fine and that she was not allowed to call him or worry.

Dean was late but Castiel had had the foresight of grabbing a magazine from the shop for his appointment earlier so he was browsing through that while he waited. He wasn’t quite sure what had made him pick this specific magazine, which had a featured article about the new Star Wars films.

The coffee place wasn’t particularly busy yet, and Castiel had a good view of the entrance from where he sat, so everytime the door opened, his head shot up to check if it was Dean. He idly wondered what the rules were on how long you had to wait when the other person was standing you up, when the door opened again and Dean walked in. His hair looked ruffled like he had run his hands through it more than once and his face looked a bit flushed.

“Hey Cas, sorry I’m late. Traffic was a bitch.”

Castiel smiled at Dean as the other man took off his leather jacket, dumped it on the free chair next to him and sat down, not across from Castiel but on the chair perpendicular to him. Instead of dwelling on that, he decided to ignore the butterflies that were causing havoc in his stomach and replied,

“No problem, I was catching up on … ‘the latest gossip’.” 

Anna had made fun of him for using actual air quotes before but he just couldn’t help himself sometimes. But the way Dean laughed at it then made him wanna do it more often, really.

“Anything interesting?”

“Well, I’ve been reading this article about the new Star Wars films. They look really interesting.”

Dean did a double take at that for some reason and Castiel expected him to say something like “how have you never seen those films?” or something really snobbish but instead he had this expression on his face that was a strange mixture of surprise and fondness. 

“You a fan, then?”

“I-uh, I am not sure. I just saw the magazine and thought the article might be interesting,” Castiel shrugged and slowly outlined the people on the cover with his fingers. 

A waiter made an appearance then and after they had given him their orders, they fell back into a comfortable silence. It was weird because this could probably pass as a first date and usually it was a bad sign if there was more silence than talking. Maybe he just needed to take the first step since they were here because of him.

“Dean… about that question I asked you last night…,” Castiel had his eyes on his hands that were still perched on the magazine in front of him. He didn’t dare look up at Dean, not yet. And there was this weird feeling, pooling in his stomach again. What if he had been wrong about this? Maybe he should-

“Cas…”

“Yes, that is what I mean. I used to despise nicknames but somehow I don’t mind it with you. And I keep getting this feeling when I am around you. But I do not remember you and it is really frustrating,”

Castiel took a deep breath and then exhaled for a long moment, deflated. He looked back at Dean who was just watching him, and Castiel just couldn’t read his expression at all. Dean probably thought he was a complete nutcase and maybe he should just end this whole disaster of a “date” now.

“Just tell me if I am wrong, please. I don’t want to impo-.”

“No!” 

Dean’s sudden response made him jump a bit and even the woman behind the counter turned around to see what was happening. But when he turned his head back to Dean, he noticed that the other man was staring at something in front of them and when Castiel looked down he saw that Dean’s hand was touching his. 

He had no idea how long they both just stared at their half-joined hands, but it felt like this was a moment that needed to be appreciated. When he lifted his eyes again, he saw Dean’s expression, it almost looked like he was waiting for Castiel to say something.

But eventually he sighed, and then a small smile appeared on his face, “You are not wrong, Cas. It’s just… it’s complicated.”

Oh. 

Castiel felt like someone had lowered the temperature a lot all of a sudden and he leaned back and thereby withdrew his hand from where Dean was still kind of hanging on to it. But then Dean held on tighter and pressed Castiel's hands slightly, looking him straight in the eyes.

“It’s just… this is going to sound really freaky. And I’m not even sure I believe it.”

Castiel took a deep breath and then decided that, for once, he should just risk something. Screw being safe and careful. And so he leaned forward again, his hand now fully holding Dean’s, their fingers tangled together.

“Dean, ever since I saw you at the supermarket, I cannot stop thinking about you. And I keep looking at you and I feel like I have known you for a long time. And I know I can trust you. And that should freak me out but it doesn’t. So I don’t think you can freak me out, really,” Castiel shrugged his shoulders.

Dean huffed a laugh which then turned into a quiet giggle. This whole situation was so weird and yet here they were, and Castiel still didn’t know what was going on. 

“Okay, you said you trust me?”

Castiel looked at him for a moment and there was absolutely no doubt whatsoever. He just knew he could trust Dean.

“I wanna show you something,” Dean got up from his chair without letting go of Castiel’s hand, instead lacing their fingers and dragged him outside to his car.

Castiel did briefly hesitate when Dean opened the car door for him but then took a few deep breaths and got in. He needed to get over his fear of cars at some point anyway, and Dean made him feel safe for some reason. So for once in his life, he thought screw it and went with his gut. And as they drove through Palo Alto, he kept his eyes firmly on Dean and completely ignored anything else that could possibly make him nervous.

When they stepped into the apartment, he slowly took it in, as if he was seeing it for the first time. Oh, he had missed it. 

There were a few new bits and bobs scattered all across the place, a big shelf stuffed with dvds and books that were new, and a desk in the corner. But his eyes stopped when he spotted a dark box with big white letters. He turned around to where Dean was hovering behind him, and when he asked him about it Dean's eyes lit up for a moment before he carefully lowered his gaze, yet the smile never vanished from his face.

“Yeah, we watched it together. The first part, at least. Do you- do you remember that?”

“No. But I feel like I should. It’s like I am trying to remember a dream,” Castiel huffed a frustrated sigh and dropped his chin to his chest.

“Okay, let me show you something then,” Dean stepped around Castiel, his arm just grazing his and for a brief moment it seemed to Castiel as if Dean did a double take because his eyes drifted to their arms. But then he just walked over to a small desk on the opposite wall.

He watched Dean uncap a large tube made of cardboard, dropping the plastic cap on the desk and then proceeding to pull out a sheet of paper. Instead of unfolding it, he just turned back around and marched out of the room towards the hallway.

“Are you coming?”

The voice came from the hall and brought him right back to reality. So he followed Dean and then noticed the door that led to the roof was open. That must have been where Dean went. And so he walked up the short staircase and into the sunshine.It was a beautiful day, the sun shining strong even though it was steadily approaching fall. But as soon as his eyes had adjusted to the brightness, the air was knocked out of his lungs. For a second he thought he must have stepped onto a different rooftop, because this didn’t look anything like the roof he was used to.

There was a huge grass area right in front of him that extended to the far end and covered about half of the whole area up here, lined by bushes that pushed into the the grass in some places and transformed into beautiful flowers in others. There were vines climbing up a beautiful metal arch structure that canopied a single pathway that led to a small fountain right in the middle of the grass area with a bench and a small table next to it. Castiel could only name a few of the plants and flowers he saw from where he currently stood. It took his breath away.

Eventually, his eyes fell back on Dean who was sitting on the bench in the middle of the garden, studying the sheet of paper he had carried up with him. But as Castiel approached him slowly, his eyes still moving back and forth to all the beauty in the garden, Dean looked up at him, shielding his eyes with his free hand and said,

“So, d’you like it?”

For a long moment Castiel couldn’t even think of a response because his mind was completely blown by what Dean had created here. How could he even put into words how truly beautiful this was?

Dean got up from the bench, grinning at him shyly,

“I mean, it’s not quite done yet. I still need to…”

Castiel effectively shut him up by pressing his lips to Dean’s. So there was that.

It took Dean a few moments to realise what was happening before he got with the program. But then they were kissing and if Castiel had thought there was nothing better than the garden Dean had created, then he would happily admit now that he had been wrong. Because kissing Dean was just this side of the best thing he had ever done. 

He felt Dean’s hands on his neck and his hips, seemingly gripping as much of Castiel as he could. And Castiel wasn’t far behind, his fingers curled behind Dean’s head, ruffling his hair. And then he just lost all concept of time. When Dean finally drew back, resting his forehead against Castiel’s, they were both grinning stupidly, both panting slightly.

“So, that just happened…” Dean quipped after a moment, his voice hoarse and wrecked. It was a truly beautiful sound. 

They remained like this for a few minutes, breathing each other’s air, their hands entwined at their sides and eyes closed. Eventually, Castiel took a step back, not letting go of Dean’s hand as he walked them over to the bench.

“Will you tell me now?” 

Dean sighed as they sat down next to each other, taking a few deep breaths before he finally looked back at him.

“Can you just promise me something?”

Castiel nodded quickly, eager to finally hear what was going on. Why he was feeling the way he felt.

“If you want me to tell you, you have to promise to listen to the whole thing. No running off, okay?”

Castiel frowned at him for a moment, not sure what Dean was implying here, but of course he wanted to hear it, wanted to figure out what was going on. He was going to stay and hear Dean out, no matter what. So he smiled at Dean and nodded once more.

“All right. So, I moved into this apartment about three months ago…”

And then Dean told him. He told him how they first met and how they figured out what was going on, how they had spent a lot of time together and how Castiel had almost died. How Dean had actually thought Castiel had died for a few weeks. And how happy he had been when he had found out Castiel had pulled through. Dean told him about Lisa and Ben, how he had been so out of it before he came to live with his brother. And then quietly admitted that it was Castiel who reeled him back in by making him see that it was all worth it.

When Dean was finished they sat in silence for a long while, Castiel trying to process everything he had just heard. It sounded absolutely ridiculous. But there wasn’t a single moment when Castiel didn’t believe a word Dean was saying. Because as he had told him about the time Castiel had been in a coma, he felt like someone was telling him about a dream he had had. 

And it wasn’t like he suddenly remembered the things Dean had told him. There were no sudden flashbacks or memory relapses. It still just felt like a far away dream to Castiel.

“So,” Dean whispered, pulling Castiel out of his thoughts and back to the present, where it was slowly getting colder. They should probably head back inside soon.

Instead of saying anything, Castiel leaned forward and kissed Dean again, telling him that he believed him with actions rather than words. And when they separated, Dean laced his fingers with Castiel's. Then he pulled him onto his feet and they slowly walked back downstairs. 

Dean stopped when they were standing in the living room, turning around with a questioning look on his face. 

“What now?” 

Castiel smiled at him, stepped right into his personal space, their faces mere inches apart, and pressed himself against Dean, pushing him towards the bedroom.

“Now,” he whispered before kissing a spot just below Dean’s ear and then leaning back to look at Dean again, “Now we make out a bit more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are still with us, thank you so much for reading. 
> 
> This was based on the film "Just like heaven" but I decided to end my story in a different, more realistic way. I really love the film and all its silly bits but I just felt like going down a different route with this :)  
> If you have seen the film, let me know what you think. 
> 
> Technically, this was my first deancas story and while I am glad to finally being able to post this, I am also going to miss it. 
> 
> If you want more, though, there is a short additional chapter in part 2 of this series that concludes this story. It's basically just fluff but I felt like it didn't really go with the main part so I chose to not include it.
> 
> Did anyone pick up on the flowers, btw?


End file.
